Assessing the Conservatives’ record

Abstract

Control of inflation was the Conservatives’ first priority when they were elected in 1979. In the words of The Right Approach to the Economy, effectively their statement of intent on economic policy, ‘The role of inflation as the great destroyer – of jobs, living standards and a stable order – is now much more widely recognised’. Did the Conservatives – in the end – deliver a worthwhile reduction in inflation? Was inflation much lower in their final years before the 1997 general election than when they came to power?