Labour Governments In The 1960’s And 1970’s.

13 Pages 3367 Words

ween 1964 and 1970, and contained ‘a so-called checklist of thirty-nine actions to achieve the aims’ . Its proposals were not revolutionary because the economic and political climate of the mid-1960’s was favorable to the idea of ‘planning’. There was so much pressure for Labour to have a plan in place before the next election that they rushed it and the plan was weak. Labour made no attempt to work out a year-by-year path to the 1970 target and they never spent much time or effort actually figuring out ways to implement their ideas. The plan was dropped in 1966 when priority was given to defence of the pound and a deflationary package that made its targets unattainable.

Plan Actual
Economic Growth + 25% + 14%
Personal Consumption + 21% + 13%
Public Expenditure + 27% + 11%
Gross Investment + 38% + 20%

Labour did, however, manage to change their balance of payments from a deficit of £721m to a surplus of £250m during their term, all at 1964 prices.

The unsuccessful attempts by the government to find policies that w...