Editing Norman Lamont (section)

== Early political career ==
===Member of Parliament===
Lamont stood as a candidate for Member of Parliament in the June 1970 general election for [[Kingston upon Hull East]]. He was defeated by [[John Prescott]], who went on to become [[Tony Blair]]'s [[Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Deputy Prime Minister]]. Two years later, on 4 May 1972, Lamont won [[1972 Kingston-upon-Thames by-election|a by-election]] to become MP for [[Kingston-upon-Thames (UK Parliament constituency)|Kingston-upon-Thames]].<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/grimsby-evening-telegraph-victory-for-mr/148831557/ |title=Victory for Mr. Lamont |newspaper=[[Grimsby Evening Telegraph]] |page=1 |date=1972-05-05 |access-date=2024-06-06 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

===Junior Minister===
Lamont served in successive governments under [[Margaret Thatcher]] and [[John Major]] for a total of 14 years, in the Departments of Energy, Industry, Defence and the Treasury. In 1986, he moved to the Treasury, first as [[Financial Secretary to the Treasury]], then [[Chief Secretary to the Treasury]] (succeeding John Major in the latter job on Major's promotion to Foreign Secretary in July 1989) under Chancellor [[Nigel Lawson]], whom he tried unsuccessfully to persuade not to resign from the government on the morning of 26 October 1989 – Lawson resigned that evening. Lamont remained as Chief Secretary to the Treasury under Major's Chancellorship. In this position, he acquiesced in Major's decision to join the [[European Exchange Rate Mechanism]] (ERM) at a central parity of 2.95 Deutschmarks to the Pound, although neither he nor any other Cabinet ministers were involved or informed about the decision before it had been made.<ref>Edmund Dell, ''The Chancellors'', HarperCollins (1996), p. 545, states that the Cabinet was not informed, Sir [[Geoffrey Howe]], the Deputy Prime Minister only learning of the decision to join from the Queen.</ref>

The decision to join the ERM was announced on Friday 5 October 1990, the last trading day before the week of the Conservative party conference. Shortly afterwards he successfully managed Major's election campaign to succeed Margaret Thatcher as party leader and Prime Minister. In her memoirs, Thatcher listed Lamont along with six other Cabinet ministers as a potential successor to her.<ref>Margaret Thatcher, ''The Downing Street Years'', HarperCollins (1993), p. 755.</ref>
During the leadership election, Lamont clashed angrily in private with Lawson who preferred [[Michael Heseltine]] as Thatcher's successor, phoning Lawson up to remind him of his caustic remarks made about Heseltine's economic policies. Lamont eventually slammed the phone down on Lawson in temper, though he later wrote to Lawson to offer an apology.<ref>Norman Lamont, ''In Office'', Little, Brown and Company (1999), p. 26.</ref>

On 16 May 1991, Lamont stated in parliament that "Rising unemployment and the recession have been the price that we have had to pay to get inflation down. That price is well worth paying."<ref>{{cite web |author=Department of the Official Report (Hansard), House of Commons, Westminster |url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199091/cmhansrd/1991-05-16/Orals-1.html |title=Hansard |publisher=Publications.parliament.uk |access-date=30 May 2010 |archive-date=24 April 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100424061118/http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199091/cmhansrd/1991-05-16/Orals-1.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The remark is regularly, but not always approvingly, recalled by commentators and other politicians. Seven months before Lamont made the statement, inflation (as measured by the annual change in the [[Retail Price Index]]) reached 10.9%. In May 1991, inflation fell to 6.4%. A year after the Major government was reelected in the [[1992 United Kingdom general election|1992 general election]], winning the most votes of any political party in British electoral history, inflation fell to 4.3%, falling to 1.3% a year later.<ref>ONS, All items retail prices index (seasonally adjusted), CHAW retrieved on 13 April 2012.</ref> However the economy continued to contract until the third quarter of 1991. After economic growth resumed, the economy grew rapidly and by the third quarter of 1993, GDP was greater than the pre-recession peak in the second quarter of 1990.<ref>ONS, Gross Domestic Product: chained volume measures: Seasonally adjusted, ABMI retrieved on 13 April 2012.</ref>