Dominic Lawson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dominic Ralph Campden Lawson (born December 17, 1956) is a British journalist.

He is the son of a former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lawson and socialite Vanessa Salmon, heir to the Lyons Corner House empire, who died of liver cancer in 1985. Lawson had three sisters, TV chef and writer Nigella Lawson, Horatia, and Thomasina, who died of breast cancer in 1993 whilst in her early 30s. Through the Salmons he is a cousin to the journalist and environmentalist George Monbiot and the solicitor Fiona Shackleton.

Educated at Westminster School and then Christ Church, Oxford, Lawson joined the BBC as a researcher, and then wrote for the Financial Times. From 1990 until 1995 he served as the editor of The Spectator magazine, a post his father had served in from 1966 to 1970.

In his capacity as editor of The Spectator he conducted, in June 1990, an interview with the cabinet minister Nicholas Ridley in which Ridley expressed opinions immensely hostile to Germany and the European Community, likening the initiatives of Jacques Delors and others to those of Hitler. Lawson added to the damage caused by claiming that the opinions expressed by Ridley were shared by the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Ridley was forced to resign from the cabinet shortly after this incident.

From 1995 Lawson was editor of The Sunday Telegraph until 2005, when he was dismissed and replaced by Sarah Sands. He is currently an Editorial and Opinion writer for The Independent and other titles including the Mail on Sunday.

Lawson has several times been accused of working with MI6 (by for instance Richard Tomlinson), but has denied being an agent.^[1]

Lawson is married to the The Honourable Rosamond Mary Monckton, daughter of the 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley. The Lawsons have two daughters (another daughter, Natalia, was stillborn some years ago), Domenica and Savannah; Domenica has Down's syndrome.

Since 2006, he has been a columnist for The Independent newspaper, where he usually takes lines contrary to the newspaper's general political position. He denies that global warming is caused by increased greenhouse gas emissions, claiming it is due to solar radiation.

[edit] References

[edit] Biography

• Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations – John Diamond, Richard Dawkins (Foreword), Dominic Lawson (Editor), Vintage, 2001, ISBN 0-09-942833-4

[edit] External links

• The Independent article on Lawson's leaving The Sunday Telegraph
• The Guardian article on Lawson's dismissal

Media offices
Preceded by Charles Moore	Editor of The Spectator 1990–1995	Succeeded by Frank Johnson
Preceded by Charles Moore	Editor of The Sunday Telegraph 1995–2005	Succeeded by Sarah Sands