Der Spiegel: The UK "A Prayer from the Death Bed"

Generali

kennyboy66 wrote: »

A trivia question for you.

Which country was Callaghan attempting to copy by introducing a prices & incomes policy ?

Lloyd George at a guess...?

StevieJ

aelitaman wrote: »

The IMF were called in because we were broke. We had public expenditure in excess of 60% of GDP, we were taxed to death and the Labour govt still had to borrow 10 bill a year. Basically just like now massive taxes, massive spending and massive borrowing. Deja Vu.

Not surprising really, this is what they picked up from the Tories :eek:

1974 - 1975 Crisis: 4-fold price rise for oil, miners' strike, 3 day week, political vacillation. Balance of payments current account deficit of £3.5 billion in 74,, and the effective exchange rate index falls from 83 to 73. Stagflation hits the world, then Britain. Real GDP falls, unemployment almost doubles, and inflation reaches record heights (24% in '75).

kennyboy66_2

Generali wrote: »

Lloyd George at a guess...?

Tricky Dicky in 1971 introduced price & wage controls, supposedly for 90 days.
It lasted almost 3 years !

Generali

kennyboy66 wrote: »

Tricky Dicky in 1971 introduced price & wage controls, supposedly for 90 days.
It lasted almost 3 years !

Certainly not a hero of mine! Presumably that was in the print 'n' bomb period after the US came off the Gold Standard in order to be able to afford to carry on sending poor US-ian urbanites to Indochina to play Dominos.

WW2 definitely saw incomes and prices policies. I would imagine that any town under seige would introduce something along those lines too out of expediency (the price mechanism doesn't always work).

It was a disaster for Wilson/Callaghan though. In the end the unions wouldn't accept the fall in living standards. The current fall in the value of the quid is a similar attack on UK living standards. It might not end well either, whoever wins the next election is going to have some bad news to deliver IMO.

Generali

StevieJ wrote: »

Not surprising really, this is what they picked up from the Tories :eek:

1974 - 1975 Crisis: 4-fold price rise for oil, miners' strike, 3 day week, political vacillation. Balance of payments current account deficit of £3.5 billion in 74,, and the effective exchange rate index falls from 83 to 73. Stagflation hits the world, then Britain. Real GDP falls, unemployment almost doubles, and inflation reaches record heights (24% in '75).

Labour won both elections in 1974.

It's quite silly to suggest the previous Tory Government had a hand in the oil crises IMO. Were they running Saudi Arabia or Persia at the time? Was this a sideline Mrs Thatcher had perhaps, prior to the 1979 election?

aelitaman

Generali wrote: »

Labour won both elections in 1974.

It's quite silly to suggest the previous Tory Government had a hand in the oil crises IMO. Were they running Saudi Arabia or Persia at the time? Was this a sideline Mrs Thatcher had perhaps, prior to the 1979 election?

I am sure that in some peoples distortion of the truth that seeing as Denis Thatcher was a Senior Manager at Burmah Oil, then yes the Oil Crisis was arranged by Maggie and the Oil Shieks to get id of the unions.

StevieJ

Generali wrote: »

Labour won both elections in 1974.

It's quite silly to suggest the previous Tory Government had a hand in the oil crises IMO. Were they running Saudi Arabia or Persia at the time? Was this a sideline Mrs Thatcher had perhaps, prior to the 1979 election?

Then again Labour did not not have a Fairy Godmother to wave that magic wand Not suggesting that the Tories had a hand in the oil crisis bit Labour sure had to pick up the pieces.

thetrampledtaxpayer

It's instructive to compare the economic growth of UK for UK and Germany for the years after we left the ERM. The UK has done better in almost every year thanks to a greater extent to retaining the ability to set our own interest rates.

We are now enmired in debt, and the cupboard is bare. A culture of v.high-cost mediocrity in the public sector has been created. As a ex-teacher myself, this has been clearly apparent in the education system. Although pupils (and staff)often work harder than they used to, the students come away knowing less (not just in my classes!) despite all the extra cash spent.

I fear that we can now only stand back and watch as we slip behind Germany. And everyone else whose governments have cared about balancing the books and educating its young generation for the real world....

ruggedtoast

What do German's know about anything anyway?

Their healthy, well educated populous is so disorientated through decades of living in a clean safe environment, with excellent public services and an optimistic cheerful outlook to life that they have totally forgotten that

DESPITE BEING BANKRUPT FAST CASH CELEBRITY OBSESSED ALCOHOLIC POVERTONS WHOSE CHILDREN CAN BARELY SPELL THEIR OWN NAMES PROPERLY

We won the war!!!!!!

(Apparently)