5 - Economic Developments Flashcards
What policy was followed by Conservative chancellors? What was it?
Stop-go
Interest rates used to control economic growth
What would be raised if the economy was growing too quickly? What would become more expensive?
Interest rates
Borrowing money
What would happen if the economy slowed? What facility would be easier to access?
Interest rates would be cut
Credit
What would happen to demand following stop-go?
Increase and decrease
What was manipulated to win more support in elections?
Budget
What did the Chancellor introduce in the 1959 budget? Why?
Tax cuts
So people could spend more
What should the Chancellor have done in the 1959 budget? Why?
Raised interest rates
To reduce spending during inflation
Who could see an increasing number of problems in the economy? What team resigned in 1957 over stop-go?
Experts
Macmillan’s Treasury Ministers
What did the Treasury Ministers want?
Reduced government spending
What did the government prefer to promote economically? What two organisations were set up in 1961?
Growth
NEDDY and NICKY
What does NEDDY stand for? What was planned?
National Economic Development Council
Growth
What does NICKY stand for? What did they want?
National Incomes Commission
Regulation of wage demands
What did the government announce in July 1961? What were they trying to curb?
Pay pause
Excessive pay demands
What did the period of 1951-64 see a period of? What else was there during this period that would later resurface?
Economic growth
Underlying problems
What was there a small difference on between Labour and Conservatives? What were policies known as?
The economy
Butskellism
What is Butskellism an amalgam of?
Butler and Gaitskell
What 2 things did Butskell want to maintain?
Full employment and economic growth
What did Butskell want to continue the development of?
Welfare state
Where else did economies grow in the 1950s? Why was this?
Western Europe
Marshall Aid
What issues were there with the balance of payments? What was Britain’s deficit value in 1961?
Britain imported more than exported
£95 million
What couldn’t Britain afford to build economically? What 2 things couldn’t be maintained?
A competitive, modern economy
Welfare state and defence commitments
What were people speaking of in terms of inflation? What demand happened as inflation grew?
“Stagflation”
Workers demanded pay rises
What was Britain’s debt by 1957? What was it in 1964?
£540 million
£800 million
What famous speech did Macmillan make by 1957?
British people “never had it so good”
What was growing in Britain despite high employment?
Unemployment
How many Britons were unemployed by 1951? How many by 1958?
367,000
563,000
What did Macmillan say in his “never had it so good speech”?
“Go around the country… and you will see prosperity”
What memoir did Jennifer Worth write? What does it state about 1950s Britain in the memoir?
Call The Midwife
“By the 1950s most houses had cold water and toilets in the yard outside”
