ABSTRACT
During the early 1960s, concern increased amongst political elites and commentators with regard to the relative decline of the British economy, which, it became apparent, was being outperformed by many of Britain’s competitors. A range of economic variables, particularly those pertaining to industrial productivity and rates of economic growth, indicated that countries such as France, Italy, Japan, the United States and West Germany were outperforming Britain. What also became apparent was the decline of the British economy in historical (as well as international) context, so that Britain’s share of world manufactured exports, for example, had declined from 33 per cent in 1900 to 16.5 per cent by 1960. The former ‘workshop of the world’ had seen its share of world exports exactly halved in sixty years. In turn, Britain’s declining share of world manufacturing exports fuelled a series of balance of payments deficits during the 1960s.
