What is it about the 1970s that Mr Burnham so likes? His keynote speeches tell us he is fighting Margaret Thatcher and intends to reverse what remains of the 1980s reforms she introduced.
The 1970s brought us high inflation. The Labour government over spent and overborrowed, driving government borrowing rates up to an astonishing 15.5%. The government ran out of other peoples’ money to spend and had to go to the IMF to borrow money. The IMF imposed spending cuts on the government as part of the conditions for the loan. Is Mr Burnham keen to replay this sorry drama? The bond markets are warning him he is spending and taxing too much.
Labour put top rate income tax up to 83% or to 98% on savings income. This produced a Brain drain as it was called, as talented, entrepreneurial, successful people queued up to leave, including some of our best pop groups. Today we see a similar exodus of entrepreneurs and people with savings seeking to flee the high taxes.
During the miners strike there was not enough energy to keep the lights on, so the government imposed a three day working week to cut the demand for power by business to avoid domestic power cuts. Will this government with its dangerous net zero policies have to introduce electricity rationing when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow?
In the 1970s the large number of nationalised industries demonstrated we did not own them but they owned us. They needed large infusions of grant aid and support from taxpayers. They sacked a lot of their staff and delivered poor customer service. Is that to be the fate of Labour’s nationalisations?
Nationalised water regularly rationed supplies with hosepipe bans in the summer, and in 1976 in some regions had to cut off water supply to peoples homes. They need to go to a standpipe in the street with a bucket. The industry tipped plenty of sewage into rivers and the sea and did not even bother to monitor and report it.
Nationalised BT often made people wait to get a phone line to their home, and for some required them to share a line with the neighbour. You could not then make a call when they were using the phone.
Strikes were common. The government fell after a winter of discontent which had disrupted many pubic services including burying the dead.
In the 1970s we entered the European Community. Tariffs were taken off and there was a major industrial collapse as UK industry was not competitive enough to withstand the shock. The UK’s growth rate halved from the 3.4% we had achieved in the 20 years prior to joining.
