ABSTRACT
The inclusion of two chapters dealing directly with ideas in a book discussing the record of a government noted for its pragmatism may seem perverse. Both Jim Callaghan and Denis Healey were cautious pragmatists, rather than adherents to a particular economic doctrine. Moreover, the absence of a parliamentary majority for most of its existence ensured that the Government had to proceed cautiously, maintaining a working majority. However, the 1970s were a period of economic change in which the post-war Keynesian consensus was replaced by a government committed to New Right ideology in 1979. In his chapter Raymond Plant has noted the degree to which social democracy had been challenged and gradually replaced as the governing ideology by the New Right. The purpose of this chapter is to examine the nature of economic thinking within the Government.
