Nott was Member of Parliament for St Ives in Cornwall from 1966 to 1983. He was the last person to commence his parliamentary career under the nearly obsolete National Liberal label. The National Liberals were formally absorbed by the Conservatives in 1968, after which Nott sat as a Conservative MP. In 1968 he was one of the few parliamentarians to vote against the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1968, thinking it disgraceful that people who had British passports should have them taken away.
In government
Nott served in the early 1970s government of Prime Minister Ted Heath as Economic Secretary to the Treasury. He joined the shadow cabinet in 1976 and the Cabinet when Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 general election. With this appointment to the cabinet, he was made a Privy Councillor. He served first as Secretary of State for Trade which incorporated The Department of Prices & Consumer Affairs. Nott was responsible for repealing the Prices & Incomes policy and played a leading role in the abolition of Exchange Control. The Department of Trade also covered responsibility for Shipping and Aviation. Nott announced the privatisation of British Airways, the first privatisation of the Thatcher Government. He was moved to Defence in the reshuffle of January 1981. He was widely criticised by the Royal Navy chiefs over the 1981 Defence White Paper for his decision to cut back on government naval expenditure during the severe economic recession of the early 1980s; the cuts originally included the proposed scrapping of the Antarctic patrol ship and the reduction of the Surface Fleet to 50 frigates and from three to two Aircraft Carriers. He switched the resultant savings into nuclear submarines, naval weapon systems and air defence. He announced and took through Parliament the upgrading of the nuclear deterrent to the current Trident system.
Resignation and retirement
Nott offered his resignation as Defence Secretary to Thatcher following the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands in March 1982. Unlike then Foreign SecretaryLord Carrington, 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 after Nott had announced in September 1982 that he would not seek re-election at the next General Election. In 1983, he was knighted, as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. Nott, John Major and Malcolm Rifkind are the only surviving members of Mrs Thatcher's cabinet who do not currently sit in either house of Parliament. In 1985, he became chairman and chief executive of the banking firm Lazard Brothers, retiring in 1989. He was chairman of Hillsdown Holdings, a multi-national food company, the Canadian firm Maple Leaf Foods, deputy chairman of Royal Insurance and other companies. He was an adviser to APAX Partners and Freshfields. He is a supporter of Brexit, the move to leave the European Union. He lives on his farm at St Erth in Cornwall.
The title of Nott's autobiography Here Today, Gone Tomorrow is a reference to an interview conducted by Sir Robin Day in October 1982. Day described Nott, who had already announced or was shortly to announce that he would not stand at the next election, as "a transient, here-today and, if I may say so, gone-tomorrow politician." He asked whether the public should believe the MP's statements on defence cuts. Nott promptly stood up calling the interview "ridiculous", removed his microphone and walked off the set. Nott's second book, Mr Wonderful Takes a Cruise, was published in 1988. In 2007, he published a family history entitled Haven't We Been Here Before. In 2012, wrote the introduction to Stephen Tyrrell's Trewinnard – A Cornish History about his home in Cornwall. Nott's fourth book, Mr Wonderful Seeks Immortality, was published in 2014.
In 2016, Nott criticised the "poisoned EU debate" in the Conservative Party, and announced he would not renew his party membership until there was change of leadership.
In popular culture
Nott was portrayed by Clive Merrison in the 2002 BBC production of Ian Curteis's controversial The Falklands Play. In the film The Iron Lady Nott is played by Angus Wright.
