ABSTRACT
The Conservative government’s claim to economic success rests on a number of genuine achievements. Before Mrs Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, Britain had for many years been at the bottom of the international league table in terms of rates of growth in gross domestic product (GDP), but during her time in office it was operating much closer to the top. The same can be said about the rate of growth of labour productivity (i.e. output per person employed) in manufacturing industry (but see Healey, 1992a).
