ABSTRACT
Few governments that come to power espousing radical political change find they are able to cast off entirely their past policies and image. The pursuit of Keynesian economics, vainly aiming for full employment, was identified with the Heath government's massive increase in state spending, strict controls on prices, dividends, rents, profits and incomes and increasing government interference in industry. Mrs Margaret Thatcher's attack on the Heath legacy, and the overall post-war leadership, even though moving by stealth before May 1979, represented another stage in the evolution of the Conservative party. The whole legacy of Keynesian post-war political economy was an underlying cause of many of the immediate economic and industrial difficulties which were obvious in May 1979. one of the most common misunderstandings of the Thatcher policy changes were that because they were 'right wing' or 'monetarist' they would inevitably lead to industrial conflict with Britain's allegedly allpowerful trade union movement.
