Long Term Trends

Since this guide to the UK economy is concerned with long-term trends in all aspects of the UK’s economic affairs, it is hard to escape discussion of policies in a political as well as an economic context. In order to fill in the background, and to avoid duplication in subsequent sections, the broad thrusts of economic changes and policy developments by political administrations back to 1960 are included here.

Political Initiatives

Rather than attribute all the political initiatives to the Prime Minister of the day, the overview looks at the last 40 years in terms of Chancellors of the Exchequer. Particularly helpful in adopting this approach was a book by a former cabinet minister in the Labour governments of the 1960s and 1970s. (See Edmund Dell, The Chancellors, published by Harper Collins in 1996.)

Overall Performance

A brief overview reveals that the UK economy under-achieved for much of the period since 1960 but, given the weak, inconsistent and muddled economic management the country had to tolerate from its political leaders, the real surprise is that performance was not much worse. Even today, when Chancellors claimed to have achieved their relatively modest ambition of creating a benign or stable environment, it all unravelled very quickly and the economy was once again plunged into a recession.