RE: The Times5 Feb 2023 11:27
Hi Gnome,
Mon 8 Apr 2013 17.51 BST
Reversing Britain's long-term economic decline,that was the daunting task Margaret Thatcher set herself when she arrived in Downing Street in May 1979 at the end of a traumatic decade that had seen a three-day week, inflation topping 25%, a bailout from the International Monetary Fund and the winter of discontent.
She gave it her best shot and he last remnants of the postwar consensus were swept away in the ensuing decade – a period that saw the crushing of the trade unions, the Big Bang in the City, council house sales, the privatisation of large chunks of industry, the encouragement of inward investment, tax cuts, attempts to roll back the state, a deep manufacturing recession, a boom in North Sea oil production, and support for the creation of a single market in Europe.
As far as her supporters are concerned, this radical transformation worked. Britain ceased to be the sick man of Europe and entered the 1990s with its reputation enhanced, the economy had become more productive, more competitive and more profitable. Deep-seated and long overdue reforms of the 1980s paved the way for the long 16-year boom between 1992 and 2008.
To her detractors, Thatcher is the prime minister who wiped out more than 15% of Britain's industrial base with her dogmatic monetarism, squandered the once-in-a-lifetime windfall of North Sea oil on unemployment pay and tax cuts, and made the UK the unbalanced, unequal country it is today!
The truth lies somewhere between these extremes,Thatcher came to power when the economy was approaching a moment of truth after three decades of poor performance relative to other western countries., if Jim Callaghan won the 1979 election, he too would have faced the challenge of how to modernise an economy beset by high inflation, weak management and poor industrial relations.
Indeed, many of the policy innovations associated with Thatcher had already been pioneered by her predecessor,full employment had been ditched in 1976, while Labour had introduced monetary targets and cash limits for Whitehall departments while Denis Healey was at the Treasury.
Nor, contrary to myth, did Thatcherism emerge fully formed in May 1979,privatisation did not feature in the Conservative election campaign, while the tougher approach to trade union reform had only really become evident since the winter of discontent, and even then was a gradual process.
That said, by the mid-1980s it was clear that the Conservative government's economic policy was based on a handful of core principles.
1.Control of inflation rather than the pursuit of full employment was the centrepiece of macro economic strategy,the government's job was to keep inflation low, not to boost growth through demand management.
Cont-
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