Why the ‘Barber boom’ that Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget recalls was destined for disaster

Anthony Barber leaves 11 Downing Street in London to present his budget to the Commons in March 1971. Photograph: William Lovelace/Getty Images

The recklessness of chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s “budget for growth” evokes memories of the disastrous outcome of the last great Conservative “dash for growth”: the so-called “Barber boom” of 1971-73.

I say so-called because the wildly expansionist policy of those years was essentially the work of PM Edward Heath. His preferred chancellor, Iain Macleod, had died within a month of taking office in 1970, and Heath was thenceforth the driving force in economic policy.