Economic Management in the 1960s: A Summing-up

Abstract

Like most other decades in British post-war history, the 1960s can be made to seem in retrospect a long series of economic disasters. Two unsuccessful attempts to enter the European Community, the collapse of the National Plan, the abandonment of incomes policy in disillusion, one balance of payments crisis after another ending in the devaluation of sterling in 1967 when so much had been staked on maintaining the parity: these episodes left little to enthuse over. The hopes of sustained expansion with which the decade opened soon faded in the July measures of 1961; Britain ’s share of world trade in manufactures continued to decline year after year without interruption; and from 1964 onwards the energies of the government were concentrated on the twin problems of wage inflation and a sagging balance of payments.