Who has heard of this astounding thing that happened in 1976. In 1976 there was a Sterling crisis and speculator attacks and so forth, which led to the Callaghan government going to the IMF. This was the beginning of neoliberal economics and Thatcherism. In fact, the austerity imposed during that time led to the wave of strikes, the Winter of Discontent, that immediately preceded Thatcher's taking power.
The Chancellor in 1976 was Denis Healey and he said that none of this had to happen, the whole sterling crisis happened because the Treasury "got the bloody figures wrong" and overestimated the problems. Who would think that mistakes like this would have such serious results? It's well-known that the Ford Administration wanted to use the IMF to force Britain towards neoliberalism and towards American goals in general and there's people who think there was a conspiracy here. Who knows, perhaps they had agents at the Treasury.
28 Apr 2010, 1:34 am
