ABSTRACT
The Conservative government which came to power under the leadership of Mrs Thatcher in 1979 was determined to make a complete break with the past in its management of the British economy. The new strategy effectively abandoned Keynesian short-run demand management aimed at full or high employment. Instead, emphasis was placed on improving the long-run, supply-side performance of the economy. Deregulation, the abandonment of controls over prices, incomes and capital movements, the return of state-owned industries to private ownership and management and, as urgent as anything, the reduction in the power of trade unions and the reform of labour laws, were all seen to be necessary (see also Chapter 10).
