ABSTRACT
The most famous of the conferences was that held at Selsdon Park in January 1970 from which emerged the liberal philosophy that dominated Conservative economic policy in 1970 and 1971. The ‘N-I’ policy was abandoned in early 1972 when the National Union of Mineworkers challenged it successfully. The reorientation of macroeconomic policy demanded that the government take new action to check wage and price inflation. The meetings to thrash out a viable voluntary prices and incomes policy continued until early November. The policy closely followed that in operation in the United States at the time and was accompanied by action to control the rate of growth of the money supply, which at that stage, if one takes sterling M3 as the best indicator, was running at close to 30 per cent per annum. The wage freeze held despite the Trades Union Congress’s verbal protests and between November 1972 and March 1973 average earnings rose by less than 1 per cent.
