My unexpected lunch with Nigel Lawson – and Prince Philip

When I joined the House of Lords in 2013 I soon realised that, despite its poor reputation, the place contained plenty of wise, quick-witted and courageous minds. None more so than Nigel Lawson who died this week. An intellectual titan who had once almost become a philosophy professor, he was not content to rest on his considerable laurels as a politician and seemed unafraid to challenge any conventional wisdom to check if it deserved that status.

But it was a lunch in 2017 with Lord Lawson and two ninety-somethings who are also now dead that remains probably the most sparkling memory of my nine years as a member of the Lords. It came about thus.

In 2016, Lord Lawson asked me to give the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s annual lecture. In it I argued, among other things, that, on the whole, the good effects of carbon-dioxide-induced global greening were being understated and the bad effects of carbon-dioxide-induced global warming were being overstated.