John Nott

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Sir John William Frederic Nott (born February 1, 1932 in Bideford, Devon) was a British Conservative Party politician prominent in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He featured heavily in the public eye as Secretary of State for Defence during the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands and the subsequent Falklands War.

Commissioned in the 2nd Gurkha Rifles in Malaysia (1952-1956), he left to study law and economics at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was President of the Cambridge Union Society.

Nott was Member of Parliament for St Ives, Cornwall, from 1966 to 1983, and joined the Cabinet when Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 general election. He served first as the President of the Board of Trade, but was moved to Defence in the reshuffle of January 1981. Nott offered his resignation to Thatcher, following the invasion of the Falklands in March 1982. Unlike that of Lord Carrington, the then Foreign Secretary, however, the resignation was not accepted. Nott remained Secretary of State for Defence throughout the four-month conflict. He was eventually replaced by Michael Heseltine in January 1983 and did not seek re-election in the 1983 general election. Together with John Major, he is the only one of Mrs Thatcher's surviving cabinet ministers who does not now sit in either house of Parliament.

In 1985 he became Chairman and Chief Executive of the banking firm Lazard Brothers. He now lives on his farm in Cornwall.

He was widely detested among the Royal Navy for advocating spending cuts to the Fleet, including the proposed scrapping of Antarctic patrol ship HMS Endurance. This helped precipate the Falklands War by giving the Argentinians the impression that Britain was no longer concerned about overseas force projection.

The title of Nott's autobiography Here Today, Gone Tomorrow is a reference to the infamous interview conducted by Sir Robin Day in October 1982. Day was questioning whether the public should believe Nott, a "here today, gone tomorrow politician" (Nott had recently announced that he would not stand at the next election), on defence cuts. Nott stood up, called the interview "ridiculous", and promptly walked off set.

John Nott's son, Julian Nott, is a film composer, screenwriter and director, most famous for writing the scores for the Wallace & Gromit animated short films.

[edit] References

• Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, Nott's autobiography, Politico's Publishing, ISBN 1-84275-030-5

Political offices
Preceded by John Smith	President of the Board of Trade 1979-1981	Succeeded by John Biffen
Preceded by Francis Pym	Secretary of State for Defence 1981-1983	Succeeded by Michael Heseltine