Competition and Credit Control, Monetary Performance, and the Perception of Macroeconomic Failure: The Heath Government and the Road to Brexit

Views about economic management by the Heath Government seem fairly well entrenched. The lofty ambition with which the Heath Government entered office to revitalise British capitalism through the injection of a new competitive ethos claimed to have quickly floundered in a quagmire of ineptitude, policy U-turns and a retreat to the safety of Keynesianism. Whilst it is not the intention of this chapter to ride to the rescue of the Heath Government’s reputation for competence in economic management it does challenge some established perceptions. Importantly, the chapter registers the ripples through British capitalism emanating from the 1971–1973 monetary experiment of Competition and Credit Control (CCC), the impulses from which ultimately led to the maelstrom of the global nancial crisis and facilitated Brexit.