With the UK again in "Crisis, What Crisis?" mode on Sterling, this detail from Prof. Diane Coyle's FT review of Richard Roberts' When Britain Went Bust is apt -- it concerns Chancellor Denis Healey's efforts to change the economic trajectory in 1976 --
In his speech to [Labour] conference, [PM] Callaghan said: “We used to think you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour, that option no longer exists.” Delegates sat stony-faced, Roberts tells us. Peter Jay, economics editor of The Times (and the PM’s son-in-law) acclaimed it as “the most breathtakingly frank public pronouncement since St Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians” — without informing readers that he had drafted the speech.
In his speech to [Labour] conference, [PM] Callaghan said: “We used to think you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour, that option no longer exists.” Delegates sat stony-faced, Roberts tells us. Peter Jay, economics editor of The Times (and the PM’s son-in-law) acclaimed it as “the most breathtakingly frank public pronouncement since St Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians” — without informing readers that he had drafted the speech.
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