Ridley of Liddesdale, Nicholas Ridley

▪ 1994

      BARON, British politician (b. Feb. 17, 1929, Newcastle upon Tyne, England—d. March 4, 1993, near Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England), was a staunch supporter of free-market economic policies and one of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's closest political allies. Known for his sharp tongue and sharper mind, he held a series of Cabinet posts under Thatcher until he resigned under pressure in 1990 after he had denounced European union and insulted both France and Germany in a magazine interview. Ridley was born into a distinguished family. His father, the 3rd Viscount Ridley and Baron Wensleydale, was a Tory member of Parliament and the grandson of the 1st Viscount Ridley, who was a Cabinet minister under Benjamin Disraeli and Lord Salisbury; his mother was the daughter of the architect Sir Edwin Luytens, granddaughter of the former viceroy of India, and great granddaughter of the novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Ridley attended Eton and studied mathematics and engineering at Balliol College, Oxford. He joined a civil engineering firm in 1950 and served as a director there (1954-70), but from an early age he sought a political career. He lost his bid for Parliament in 1955, but he won in 1959 and became the 10th Ridley to serve in the House of Commons. He held a variety of minor posts in the Ministries of Technology and Trade and Industry under Prime Minister Edward Heath, but he refused an appointment as arts minister. In 1979 Thatcher named him minister of state to the foreign office, but his abrupt outspokenness and caustic wit made him generally unsuited to foreign service. Although he alternately charmed and enraged his opponents, Ridley served Thatcher loyally as financial secretary to the treasury (1981-83) and as secretary of state for transport (1983-86), the environment (1986-89), and trade and industry (1989-90). As one of the architects of "Thatcherism," he privatized industry and instituted the first poll tax. Ridley was so closely associated with Thatcher that he was assumed to be speaking for her in The Spectator interview when he referred to the European Community as "a German racket" and described the French as "poodles to the Germans." The ensuing embarrassment forced him to resign and contributed to the prime minister's fall shortly thereafter. Ridley remained a gadfly on the backbench, however. He published his memoirs, My Style of Government: The Thatcher Years, in 1991, and he campaigned against the Maastricht Treaty until his death. He was created baron in 1992.

* * *