Research On The U-turn Over The Economic Policy Of The Heath Government

The Heath government is one of the main turning point of Britain's historical development after the Word War II, which had tried braking'Consensus Politics'and creating'new world', which had made an important contribution for the development of Modern State capitalism and so on. However, the Heath government was criticized as'the failed government'for a long time, this state did not change to some extent by later stage of 1990 times, people begin to carefully scrutinize this period and to appraise the new one again.The policy formation of Heath government must trace back to 1964 when Conservative Party's general election was defeated. To win the next general election, Conservative Party reached the general common in changing the old policy. For this reason, the Conservative Party elected a new leader, confirmed a new direction, and made a new policy. After Heath was elected the new leader, he had taken a long time to appraise the old policy for six years. At last, he formed the new policy by reducing State intervention to recover the economy. Heath hoped that it would thoroughly change the historical process of Britain, and explained it as'the Quiet Revolution'. However, under the whole great background of'Consensus Politics', the Heath government's policy was forced to turn round in 1972. These mainly displayed in three respects, retreated from industrial policy developed into 1972'Industrial Act', lied aside 1971'Industrial Relations Act', and implemented the Price and Income policy again. Heath government was forced to return to the old road of state intervene, and caused the failure of general election of 1974.It is obviously that Britain's serious inflation and problem of unemployment caused Heath government had to change the policy in initial stage of in powering. But it is not so imply, we should not take Heath's Revolution as the end of the Consensus Politics, the new beginning of the liberalism policy and reinvent Britain, we must deeply analysis his starting point and final purpose. Heath was one firm Keynesian person, his purpose is to make the country better by decreasing the state intervene, so it is accurately'the Quiet Improvement'. Obviously, this is the basic reason why the reform failed.The U-turn is argued point by two kinds of completely different views of Heath's government policy. So how to objectively realize this incident is the most important fact, it is the key to study the function of Heath government's history, and correctly appraise it, which has important historic significance. These also are the innovation and value herein of the article.