Since 1945 all governments in Britain have attempted to manage the economy and secure electoral support on the basis of demonstrating their effectiveness in that management. In turn, the electorate have used judgements of the economic competence of governments as an important factor in their voting decisions. Much of post-war politics has therefore been about national economic management. From a political point of view the key questions are: what have been the goals of such management? How can those goals best be achieved? And, perhaps most fundamentally, can national governments really deliver these desirable outcomes, or has their power to do so been seriously weakened by the process of international economic integration?