2011/04/20 by Chris Cooper · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Political and Economic history of UK and US #Irish and British Studies #Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism
paper · doi:10.1080/13619462.2011.570113
openalex publication_date 2011/04/20 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This article re-assesses the resignation of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Peter Thorneycroft, and his two junior ministers in January 1958 in terms of the importance of this event in the pre-history of Thatcherism. It does so by considering Thorneycroft's political career as a whole, arguing that, throughout his time in public life, he showed characteristics that were more in tune with the New Right Conservatism of the 1980s than with the One Nation Toryism that held sway for a generation after 1945. In particular, Thorneycroft singled out inflation as the key concern of the British economy and took up, without the need for guidance from his junior ministers, the need, if inflation was to be checked, for government to control its spending and the quantity of money in circulation.