ABSTRACT
Between 1964 and 1970 the Labour Government concentrated on productivity, efficiency and industrial output, whereas the Tory period of government from 1959 to 1964 had been characterised by a concentration on rent, profits, tax evasion, capital gains and foreign investment. The Tory Governments of 1951, 1955 and 1959 embraced some of the techniques of planning, and carried out large investment programmes in the nationalised industries. The Tory actions in the fifties were, however, to direct political controversy into an economic debate, a debate about how to control the economy instead of whether to control it. The freeze quickly thawed and in 1963 the Christine Keeler story, plus the economic troubles, sent the Tory Government’s popularity plummeting. The row over the operation of the incomes policy and the later conflict between the unions and the Government on industrial relations, were the main events which influenced trade union political attitudes during the 1964–70 Labour Government.
