Everything about Nicholas Ridley Baron Ridley Of Liddesdale totally explained
» For the 16th Century English cleric and martyr, see Nicholas Ridley (martyr).
Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale, PC (
17 February 1929 –
4 March 1993) was a British
Conservative Party politician and government minister.
Early Life
Nicholas Ridley was the grandson of architect
Edwin Lutyens, and is the father of
Jane Ridley, Reader in History at the
University of Buckingham. He is also the uncle of scientist and broadcaster
Matt Ridley. Ridley was educated at
Eton College and
Balliol College, Oxford.
During his
Eton days, Nicholas Ridley's
fag had been
Tam Dalyell, later
Labour MP for
West Lothian. After a meeting of strong words, Ridley was reported to say "he was my fag at Eton, I wish I'd beaten him more!"
He became a
civil engineer and company director. He served as secretary of the
Canning Club, a councillor on
Castle Ward Rural District Council and a member of the executive committee of the
National Trust.
Member of Parliament
At the
1955 general election, Ridley unsuccessfully contested the safe
Labour seat of
Blyth. He was elected
Member of Parliament (MP) for
Cirencester and Tewkesbury at the
1959 election.
He was appointed as
Parliamentary Private Secretary in 1962, and from 1964 he was a
Select Committee member before joining the
front bench.
He was a strong supporter in the Party of
Margaret Thatcher. In 1973, he formed the
Selsdon Group, which was opposed to the abandonment of the radical 1970 manifesto by
Edward Heath. The members of the group were seen as disloyal at the time but their ideas came to dominate the Thatcher years.
In government
When the Conservatives were returned to office at the
1979 general election, Ridley was appointed to the new Conservative government as Minister of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office responsible for the Falkand Islands. His first visit to the Islands was in July 1979, after which the Foreign Office considered the options, given that the idea of 'Fortress Falklands' was deemed unfeasible on the grounds of cost - Britain couldn't afford to maintain a sufficiently powerful military presence on the Islands to deter an invasion.
Instead, Nicholas Ridley was sent back to the Islands in November 1980 to try to persuade Islanders to accept a proposal for 'leaseback' whereby nominal sovereignty would be given to Argentina but British administration would be maintained for a fixed number of years until the final handover. Islanders were unconvinced and Parliament gave the proposals a hostile reception, pointing out that British peoples shouldn't be handed over against their will to such an unsavoury regime as the Argentine junta. In the face of this opposition the Conservative government once again reiterated that the Islanders' wishes were 'paramount'.
In February 1981, with the support of the Islands' Councillors, the British government met with Argentine representatives in New York but the British proposal for a sovereignty freeze was rejected by the junta. British intelligence reports continued to suggest that Argentina would invade the Islands only if it was convinced there was no prospect of eventual transfer of sovereignty.
Ridley advised that leaseback remained the only feasible solution and recommended that Britain initiate an education campaign to persuade Islanders, but this proposal was rejected by Lord Carrington who felt that any attempt to put pressure on Islanders would be counter-productive. However, the cumulative effect of stalled sovereignty negotiations, the British Nationality Act 1981 (which would deprive many Islanders of their rights as full British citizens), the announced withdrawal of HMS Endurance, the shelving of plans to rebuild the Royal Marine barracks at Moody Brook, and the proposed closure of the British Antarctic Survey base at Grytviken on South Georgia, was to convince Argentina that Britain had no future interest in the Islands.
From 1981 to 1983 Ridley was the
Financial Secretary to the Treasury. After the
1983 election, Ridley - always regarded by Margaret Thatcher as "one of us" - was a beneficiary of her move to cull the Tory
wets and joined her
cabinet as
Secretary of State for Transport. In that role he played a major part in making preparations for a possible
coal strike, which proved an important factor in deciding the outcome of the
UK miners' strike (1984-1985). Ridley had long been acutely aware of the threat the trade unions could pose to the execution of Conservative policies and, in the wake of the Heath government's union difficulties, had authored the
Ridley Plan, which set out means of dealing with the trade unions and was a prototype for later developments. The Thatcher government attached considerable importance to being properly prepared for a major miners' strike and backed down from a confrontation with the miners in its first Parliament. By the time that the miners did strike, in March 1984, considerable efforts had been made in stockpiling coal at
power stations, ensuring the availability of non-unionised transport workers and ensuring the availability of oil-fired generation plant.
Never far from controversy, he'd to apologise, following the sinking of the Channel ferry, the
Herald of Free Enterprise in
1987, for remarking that he wouldn't be pursuing a particular policy "with the Bow Doors Open" (The ship had capsized, with loss of 193 lives, as a result of sailing with its Bow Doors open).
As
Secretary of State for the Environment from
1987 to
1989, he's credited with popularising the phrase
NIMBY or
Not In My Back Yard for those who as a reflex opposed any building development. It was soon revealed that Ridley opposed a low cost housing development near a village where he owned a property. More importantly, he was the Cabinet Minister responsible for the introduction of the
Community Charge or poll tax, a policy that brought a standing ovation at the Conservative Party conference at which it was announced, but which turned out to be a policy that mired the Thatcher government in controversy.
On
14 July 1990 he was forced to resign as
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry after an interview published in
The Spectator. He had described the proposed
Economic and Monetary Union as "a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe" and said that giving up
sovereignty to Europe was as bad as giving it up to
Adolf Hitler. The interview was illustrated with a
cartoon depicting Ridley adding a Hitler moustache to a poster of the German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl. While Ridley wasn't one of the most powerful government members, he was regarded as a Thatcherite loyalist and his departure was a significant break in their ranks. Margaret Thatcher herself had to resign four months later. Some commentators point to Ridley's resignation, its manner, and the European issue at its core, as leading indicators for the next decade of Conservative Party politics.
Retirement and Death
On
28 July 1992, he was created a
life peer as
Baron Ridley of Liddesdale, of Willimontswick in the County of
Northumberland. An unrepentant chain smoker for much of his life, Ridley died of
lung cancer relatively soon after his elevation to the
House of Lords. During a media launch event for an anti-litter campaign with Margaret Thatcher, Ridley was seen during the whole event with a cigarette in his mouth. Ridley's puppet on
Spitting Image always had a cigarette in its mouth.
At the
1996 Nicholas Ridley Memorial Lecture, Lady Thatcher said of Ridley:
» "Free-market economics was always Nick's passion. And he'd a longer, better pedigree in that respect than most Thatcherites—or indeed I may add—than Thatcher herself. His first vote against a Conservative Government bailing out nationalised industries was in
1961. To be so right, so early on, isn't to have
seen the light—it is to have
lit it.... He would have been a superb Chancellor."
Trivia
Nicholas Ridley was a keen water colour artist, and photographer - he even took the cover photograph for the 1960s rock group the
Swinging Blue Jeans first album.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Nicholas Ridley Baron Ridley Of Liddesdale'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://nicholas_ridley__baron_ridley_of_liddesdale.totallyexplained.com">Nicholas Ridley, Baron Ridley of Liddesdale Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
