Dominic Lawson

Dominic Ralph Campden Lawson (born 17 December 1956)^{[citation needed]} is a British journalist.

Background

Educated at Westminster School and then Christ Church, Oxford, he is the elder 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 in her early 30s. Through the Salmon family he is a cousin to the journalist and environmentalist George Monbiot and the solicitor Fiona Shackleton.^{[citation needed]}

Lawson is married to The Honourable Rosamond Mary Monckton, daughter of the 2nd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, born plain 'Miss' Rosa Monckton in 1953 - prior to her grandfather being titled (the 1st Viscount) in 1957. The Lawsons have two daughters (another daughter, Natalia, was stillborn), Domenica and Savannah; Domenica has Down's syndrome. Monckton is a patron of the disabled children's charity KIDS^[1] and is involved in Down's charity work. Rosa Monckton has talked to the press about how Down's has affected her and her daughters' lives.^[2]

Career

Lawson joined the BBC as a researcher, and then wrote for the Financial Times. From 1990 until 1995 he was editor of The Spectator magazine, a post his father had occupied 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. Although senior Tories promptly called for Lawson's head, his proprietor, Conrad Black, stood by him. Under Lawson's five-year editorship, the magazine's circulation grew from 30,000 to 50,000. It also won the "What The Papers Say#Awards" award for best newspaper - the first and only time it was awarded to a magazine.

Lawson has several times been accused of working with MI6 (by for instance Richard Tomlinson), but has denied being an agent.^[3]

From 1995 until 2005, Lawson was editor of The Sunday Telegraph. In 2000 the newspaper was named Newspaper of the Year at the British Press Awards. In 2006, he started to write columns for The Independent newspaper and in 2008, he became the main columnist for The Sunday Times.

He is a strong chessplayer and is the author of The Inner Game, on the inside story of the 1993 world chess championship.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ [1], KIDS - Our Patrons
2. ^ "My Down's daughter changed my life", Daily Mail, 14 November 2007. Retrieved on 25 April 2009.
3. ^ "Editor 'provided cover for spies'", The Guardian, 26 January 2001. Retrieved on 1 April 2007.

Publications

• Lawson, Dominic, The Inner Game, Hardinge Simpole Limited, 2008, ISBN 1-843-82137-0
• Diamond, John, Dawkins, Richard (Foreword), Dominic Lawson (Editor), Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations , Vintage, 2001, ISBN 0-09-942833-4
• Lawson, Dominic, End Game: Kasparov vs. Short, Harmony, 1994, ISBN 0-517-59810-8

External links

• http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-dominic-effect-1569102.html The Independent article on Lawson's editorship of The Spectator

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

Persondata
Name	Lawson, Dominic
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Date of birth	17 December 1956
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