Monday, January 09, 2017

Anecdote of the Day

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.

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