Disjunctive Prime Ministerial Leadership in British Politics by Christopher Byrne & Nick Randall & Kevin Theakston

Author:Christopher Byrne & Nick Randall & Kevin Theakston
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030449117
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

3.6 Conclusion

Wilson’s, Heath’s, and Callaghan’s political careers stretched across the whole arc of political time, encompassing the establishment, management, decay, crisis, and breakdown of the Keynesian welfare state regime. They entered Parliament and began their political careers as the Attlee government pushed through its reforming and reconstructive programme. They climbed the political ladder in the 1950s and 1960s when political debate and the tasks of government centred on how to make the mixed-economy, welfare-capitalist, ‘corporate bias’ system work best. In the 1970s they grappled unsuccessfully with its deepening vulnerabilities, tensions, and contradictions. Out of power in the 1980s, they lived to witness Thatcher’s radical reconstruction of regime priorities, policies, and the political order.

Having come to power in 1970 and encountered a regime manifesting increasing signs of enervation, it is hard to escape the conclusion that, in February 1974, Heath left a regime that had been further destabilised. In the economic sphere, Heath left the nation in recession with inflation, borrowing, the money supply, and public expenditure all at higher levels than he inherited. Only unemployment remained, by later standards, low. As Hall records, Heath’s premiership coincided with the beginning of the end of the Keynesian era in which such ‘policies proved increasingly inadequate to the economic challenges facing the nation and more productive of political problems than solutions’ (Hall 1986: 93–94). However, even allowing for these constraints, Heath’s actions frequently exacerbated these problems. For example, the relaxation of monetary policy during Heath’s ‘dash for growth’ saw lending funnelled into property speculation. When this property bubble burst at the end of 1973 it in turn triggered a crisis in the secondary banking sector, leading to Britain’s first bank crisis since 1866. Heath was also fortunate to escape some of the economic consequences of his actions. His successors were often less lucky. For example, the threshold clause in Stage Three of Heath’s incomes policy contributed to further substantial wage inflation in the first year of the Wilson government. Similarly, the decision to float the pound initially delivered an ‘Indian Summer’ (Hirowatari 2015: 77). However, a floating rate regime diminished the capacity of the Treasury to defend sterling and enhanced the power of market sentiment, as later seen in the 1976 IMF crisis.

Heath’s technocratic approach to government solved none of the major governing challenges of the time, and his actions in office ultimately undermined support for the regime within the Conservative Party. The circumstances in which the Heath government fell in 1974 validated those who had expressed misgivings about incomes policies and neo-corporatism, and encouraged reassessment amongst those who had not. Ideological hostility to Heath’s position played a significant role in the outcome of the party’s 1975 leadership election. Although Thatcher was circumspect in her promotion of reconstructive politics while Leader of the Opposition, the way was open to construct a narrative in which governing failures were traced back to Heath’s ‘betrayal’ of the ‘Selsdon’ prospectus.

Wilson’s approach to the management of disjunction involved postponing hard choices, playing for time, and strategic sequencing of decisions.

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