Part 3- The end of the post war consensus 1970-1979
,Heath as a leader
• Became PM in 1970.
• Had cleared and detailed program of policies for the modernization
Britain.
• First Conservative Party leader to be educated at a state school.
• Was good at policies but not politics.
• Knew the issues surrounding the EEC entry inside and out.
• Skilled on industrial relations and economic modernization.
• Thatcher defeats Heath in the 1975 election.
, Political and economic policies
• Lame Duck • Tax reforms, better law and order, reforms to
industries: industries trade unions, immigration controls, end to p
which can’t survive subsidy of Lame Duck industries.
without state control. • Reforms:
• Decimalization:
security prices are
• School leaving age raised to 16.
represented as • British currency went decimal.
decimals.
• Anthony Barber (chancellor) introduced cuts
• Stagflation: spending and tax cuts to encourage investm
unemployment is
occurring at the same
Barber boom, a rapid rise in inflation and
time as inflation. unemployment.
, Political and economic policies
• U-turn: reversal • As unemployment started to edge towards a
of a previous the government wanted to start taking inter
policy. • They felt compelled to act.
• Rolls Royce was nationalized in 1971.
• Government money was poured in to preven
Upper Clyde Shipbuilders from going bankru
was the famous U- turn.
• By 1973, this all seemed to be working, as
unemployment had fallen back to 500,000.
• However, this was to change with the oil pric
in 1973 and the energy crisis which followed