Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters
The ghosts of British economic crises past are raising their spectral heads. Memories are being evoked of the ill-conceived and ill-fated “dashes for growth” under Conservative chancellor Reginald Maudling in 1962-64, Anthony Barber in 1972-74 and my old friend Nigel Lawson in 1988-89.
Yes, they too were Tory chancellors. They usually are. When Gordon Brown, Labour chancellor from 1997 to 2007, was reported as promising “no more boom and bust” he was teased and widely misquoted. What he insisted he actually said was “no more Tory boom and bust”.
