Chapter 51 Section 3 Leave Income Policy

The debate over union power is linked to the debate over incomes policy.At this time, the government's income policy appears increasingly fragile.At the end of the second year of the "temperance" policy, although the Council of Trade Unions asked its members not to ask for a wage increase more than once in the next 12 months, and the Chancellor implored the capital increase not to exceed 10% threats of sanctions from capital increase employers), there is still no agreement on a formal revenues policy.Of course, the difficulties facing the Labor government and the unions in trying to agree on incomes policy pale in comparison to our difficulties.Unfortunately, we had promised to publish an economic policy paper, including income policy, before the 1977 party annual conference.David Howell, an able monetarist journalist and frontbench spokesman, was the chief drafter.And Jeffrey.Howe, who had relentlessly sought some consensus among conflicting views in his economic construction group, was now fully convinced that German-style "concerted action" through some economic forum would be the best policy.

I have seen difficulties coming, and I express my disquiet about them.Jeffrey tried to convince me of the merits of the forum system by sending me an article explaining how the Germans did it.I wrote him and said, "This article scares me out of my wits. We really must avoid this kind of horrible jargon. We should realize that German talk houses work because they are German." Work on the drafting paper continued, but in the frontbench's economics spokesman rather than in the shadow cabinet.Compared with Glenwick and the "closed factory" problem, Keith was prepared to make bigger concessions than I did.He shares my uneasiness with "forums".In the end, the document was signed by Keith, Jeffrey, Jim, Pryor, Davey, Howell and Angus, Maude, without formal approval by the shadow cabinet.

I don't like the document "Right Thinking About the Economy" very much.Unlike the "Right Ways of Thinking" published in 1976, this document has little influence on the outside world, and will have little influence on the policies that we will implement when we are in power in the future.I was careful to make sure that "acting in concert" - outside the limited framework of the National Economic Development Council - never let it see the light of day. This is how we mended the policy cracks to some extent before the 1977 party's annual conference in Blackpool.The annual meeting itself taught me an important lesson, but party administrators found it hard to accept.On the face of it, the Blackpool Annual Meeting was a success, with colleagues generally sticking to the consensus line on contentious issues and avoiding embarrassing splits.My own speech is also in this spirit.It contains many good ideas, but no matter how embellished it is, the content of this document is basically just a cheerful attack on the noise of the Labor Party, lacking aggressive substance.While direct feedback is good, it didn't take long for the truth to come out and big questions about our policy went unanswered; I'm not happy with the document.My instincts proved correct.We went into conference season with a slight lead over Labour in the polls, and by the end of the conference Labor was neck and neck with us.A "good" annual meeting should never stop discussing issues in order to avoid arguments.

After all, by January 1978, the focus had shifted to those difficult, important issues that party managers thought were best avoided.Geoffrey Howe's sharp and sweeping attack on the role of trade unions in the UK in his speech at Swindon drew a flurry of abuse from union leaders and undisguised sulking from some colleagues.I agree with Jeffrey and have publicly defended him.But I basically stick to Pryor's line of thinking, so I persuade him not to give this kind of speech again, I wrote in the draft: "Jeffrey: This is not your subject, why continue to speak on this subject ? The news media will crucify you for it."

Oddly enough, a few days later I myself was the target of equally sharp criticism, and I resolved to use the Scottish Industrialists Conference in Glasgow as a speech to free us from the confines and bewilderment of income policy.I say: It is inevitable that governments should no longer intervene in private-sector prices and profits, as we and you would like to see them, and that they should not intervene in wage negotiations.There is no alternative to personal responsibility. The statement came under fire, including one in The Economist with the careful headline: "Mrs Thatcher takes Conservatives into perilous waters."

In those days, a dormant socialism had become the conventional wisdom in Britain.However, the old order is beginning to break down, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for anyone with a responsibility to look forward to avoid challenging the traditional forces.During the Labor Party government, crises followed one after another, economic crisis, financial crisis, and industrial crisis, all of which required us to break away from the common sense represented by the economists of "The Economist", and also required us to break away from the common sense represented by Jim Pryor. The route everyone has agreed upon.The two are often indistinguishable.