ABSTRACT
In the post-war period, many Conservatives came to blame their 1945 election defeat on the 1930s association of Conservative rule with high unemployment, and consequently the party in the 1950s and beyond was eager to adopt Keynesian fine tuning and demand management. The period from 1979 to 1983 therefore saw continuing reexamination of the nature of contemporary Conservatism as the unemployment figures moved steadily upwards both under Jim Prior and then Norman Tebbit as Employment Secretaries. The Government is deliberately trying to squeeze inflation out of the economy by reducing output and increasing unemployment. Mrs Margaret Thatcher adamantly told both groups in Parliament that reflation would accelerate inflation, leading to still higher unemployment. A number of more plausible alternatives and suggestions come from close analysis of the different types of unemployment. The abolition of the wages councils, the reduction in trade union monopoly power and changes in the definitions of unemployment all have much to commend them.
