“It’s that 1970s vibe again,” a senior colleague tells me. This being the Financial Times I presume he is picking up echoes of a bygone economic and political milieu, rather than gleefully anticipating the re-emergence of flares or X-rated movie theatres. Either way, it is hard to venture a firm opinion on the matter: as late as the 1990s, I was still at school. My recollection of James Callaghan is pretty hazy, and I know Edward Heath only through a charming book of Christmas carols that he compiled after leaving office. (Millennials and foreigners confused by the direction this column is taking may be interested to know that both men were UK prime ministers.)
There certainly are parallels: now, as then, politics is dominated by the two big parties; the nation is led by a weak minority government; and Jeremy Corbyn’s views seem politically relevant. There is even an economic echo: the unemployment rate, at 4.3 per cent, is back down to the levels last seen in 1975, when I was in nappies.
But in other ways it feels absurd to compare today’s economy with that of 40 years ago. The uptick in inflation that has attracted some attention this week — to 2.9 per cent on the consumer price index measure — is a molehill compared with the Himalayan peaks of yesteryear, with retail price index inflation rarely slipping below 10 per cent per year and sometimes exceeding 25 per cent. With inflation at 25 per cent, prices double every three years; with inflation at 2.9 per cent the doubling would take a generation. Bank of England base rates then shuttled breathlessly between 5 and 15 per cent — whereas they sit today, as they have done since 2009, at record lows. The price of oil remains of interest not because it has spiked but because it has halved.
And rather than joining the European Economic Community in a desperate attempt to save the British economy, we are now leaving in a desperate attempt to . . . well, I am still trying to figure that one out.
But those are the dry numbers. What of the zeitgeist, the more ineffable spirit of the times? That is a curious question. Dominic Sandbrook, a leading British historian of the 1970s, reminds us of the words of Callaghan to his Labour party colleagues in 1974: “Our place in the world is shrinking: our economic comparisons grow worse, long-term political influence depends on economic strength — and that is running out . . . If I were a young man, I should emigrate.”
Callaghan’s mournful diagnosis cuts deep today. Much of the country knows how he felt. But the curious thing is that half of them believe that the UK was doing just fine until we voted for a once-in-a-generation act of self-harm last June. The other half were as gloomy as Callaghan until the Brexit vote gave them hope. Say what you like about the 1970s, at least their grimness is a fact that we can agree on.
Then, national humiliation was inflicted by the need to approach the International Monetary Fund for help — and everyone could agree that this was not an encouraging development. Now, national humiliation is in the eye of the beholder and we have either broken free of decades of subjugation to Brussels — or voted to make ourselves a laughing stock. I hope the rest of the world is enjoying the joke, at least. Our foreign secretary is Boris Johnson, our prime minister is “strong and stable”, our foreign policy is built on the steadfastness of President Donald Trump, and our back-up plans include Mr Corbyn and the Conservative member of parliament Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Economically, our 2017-era service industries and just-in-time supply chains are highly unlikely to survive a hard Brexit unscathed, despite the gung-ho cheerleading of a few economists who seem to think nothing much has changed in international economics since David Ricardo outlined the principle of comparative advantage in 1817.
Jill Lepore, a Harvard history professor, commented not long ago that she was wary of glib historical comparisons: “Trump is like Andrew Jackson”; “Cryptocurrencies are like the tulip bubble”. Rather than squashing together the past and present like an accordion, she advocates expanding the instrument, “stretch it open as far as you can, so you can see the distance”.
So if we stretch the accordion out, what do we see? A country that becomes more open, liberal, tolerant, wealthy and confident but also more economically unequal. The rise in inequality largely took place in the 1980s, but only became politically salient after the banking crisis of 2007. But also, perhaps, a country that now, as then, has lost a sense of direction. What ever you think of the journey, we travelled a long way under Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. But we have been becalmed now for a decade. Where exactly are we going? Ponder again this week’s unemployment and inflation numbers, which reinforce the picture of the UK economy that has become familiar: plenty of jobs, but not a lot of money.
The nation, like its government, is working flat out and going nowhere.
Written for and first published in the Financial Times on 15 September 2017.
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