Perhaps the best description of the Thatcher government's economic policy came in Michael foot's famous speech in the House of Commons. He recalled how he'd seen a conjurer when he was young, who performed a trick by getting an expensive gold watch from an audience member and then smashing it. Then looking baffled and saying "I've forgotten the rest of the trick."
@@perkinscrane It didn't work. Only when government spending pick backed up in late 84 did inflation and unemployment start to ebb. It was fools errand.
@@perkinscranean awful lot of manufacturing. There's quite a lot of info out there if you look. Denis Healey described it as an "industrial holocaust". Edward Heath was also highly critical saying that the industry which has been forced to close "wasn't coming back" and famously when Thatcher said it'd all be replaced by service industries that "it's alright taking in other people's washing, but what happens when your washing machine breaks?" Thatcher herself later publicly disowned monetarism.
I worked in road transport at the time (1981) and for many years both before and after. I witnessed firsthand the demise of “an awful lot of manufacturing “. In those days I had a lot of sympathy for the opinions both Ted Heath and Denis Healey and admired Tony Howard’s journalism. With hindsight I now look back at a Britain which had 20 years of industrial change (That includes the Blair/Brown years) which resulted a much more prosperous country. Before Thatcher there was a political consensus that for strategic reasons (threat of world war?) it was expedient to locally produce coal, make steel and make a whole range of products even though they could be bought elsewhere of better quality and much cheaper. Thatcher understood that this model ( Butskellism, the post war consensus, call it what you will) was not working. She took Britain down a different path which it is still on Keir Starmer not withstanding. Howard/Heath/Healey we’re all decent chaps ( products of world war 2) but their ideas were discredited by the 1980s and we are not going back any time soon.
If I am not mistaken, the number of unemployed swelled to around 3.3 million by the end of 1983. Growth started 84 onward which continued for the next four years. But that again rapidly increased Inflation by 1988-89.
Depending on which source you choose, some say unemployment didn't peak until 1986. There was a lot of controversy too about how the figures were calculated, with many saying that the figures were massaged to hide the true level of unemployment. It reached another high point in 1993 as well.
Thatchers economic record isn't that great. If you compare the 1980's with the 1970's growth rates are very similar. Add in North Sea oil and the record looks even less impressive. What Thatcher did was transform the nature of the economy or at least accelerate its transformation unfortunately this was not accompanied by a transformation in performance.
“I shall sit down now. But you will listen to me hereafter.”
- Disraeli
Perhaps the best description of the Thatcher government's economic policy came in Michael foot's famous speech in the House of Commons. He recalled how he'd seen a conjurer when he was young, who performed a trick by getting an expensive gold watch from an audience member and then smashing it. Then looking baffled and saying "I've forgotten the rest of the trick."
8:08 ---- I'm not sure how you can call "likely to lead to social unrest" a mere "peripheral error."
Likely phrased that way because it was really merely tangental to the economic argument.
That budget helped to get the UK back on its financial feet.
It was a very rough tool. It also destroyed a lot of perfectly viable, good businesses.
@@th8257 such as?
@@perkinscrane It didn't work. Only when government spending pick backed up in late 84 did inflation and unemployment start to ebb. It was fools errand.
@@perkinscranean awful lot of manufacturing. There's quite a lot of info out there if you look. Denis Healey described it as an "industrial holocaust". Edward Heath was also highly critical saying that the industry which has been forced to close "wasn't coming back" and famously when Thatcher said it'd all be replaced by service industries that "it's alright taking in other people's washing, but what happens when your washing machine breaks?" Thatcher herself later publicly disowned monetarism.
I worked in road transport at the time (1981) and for many years both before and after. I witnessed firsthand the demise of “an awful lot of manufacturing “. In those days I had a lot of sympathy for the opinions both Ted Heath and Denis Healey and admired Tony Howard’s journalism. With hindsight I now look back at a Britain which had 20 years of industrial change (That includes the Blair/Brown years) which resulted a much more prosperous country.
Before Thatcher there was a political consensus that for strategic reasons (threat of world war?) it was expedient to locally produce coal, make steel and make a whole range of products even though they could be bought elsewhere of better quality and much cheaper. Thatcher understood that this model ( Butskellism, the post war consensus, call it what you will) was not working. She took Britain down a different path which it is still on Keir Starmer not withstanding.
Howard/Heath/Healey we’re all decent chaps ( products of world war 2) but their ideas were discredited by the 1980s and we are not going back any time soon.
If I am not mistaken, the number of unemployed swelled to around 3.3 million by the end of 1983. Growth started 84 onward which continued for the next four years. But that again rapidly increased Inflation by 1988-89.
Depending on which source you choose, some say unemployment didn't peak until 1986. There was a lot of controversy too about how the figures were calculated, with many saying that the figures were massaged to hide the true level of unemployment. It reached another high point in 1993 as well.
What economic recovery of the 1980s, that's a contradictiin
Thatchers economic record isn't that great. If you compare the 1980's with the 1970's growth rates are very similar. Add in North Sea oil and the record looks even less impressive. What Thatcher did was transform the nature of the economy or at least accelerate its transformation unfortunately this was not accompanied by a transformation in performance.
The CITY is her baby! UK financial services and its centres created a Pareto wealth effect which lasts to this day.
Geoffrey Howe fails to mention North Sea Oil revenues bailed him out.