Abstract
If there was one concept at the heart of the raised expectations and dashed hopes of British politics in the 1960s, it was ‘planning’. It is difficult now to recall the hopes invested in such techniques, so vital in Labour leader Harold Wilson’s appeal to the ‘white heat of the technological revolution’: but such convictions were extremely widespread and deeply held. As Wilson wrote in 1961: ‘steady industrial expansion and a strong currency… can be achieved only by… purposive economic planning’.1 Such thinking was behind his 1963 Conference speech as leader:
Because we are democrats, we reject the methods which communist countries are deploying in applying the results of scientific research to industrial life. But because we care deeply about the future of Britain, we must use all the resources of democratic planning, all the latent and undeveloped… skills of our people, to ensure Britain’s standing in the world.2
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Notes
H. Wilson, Purpose in Politics (1964), p. 28.
R. Toye, The Labour Party and the Planned Economy 1931–51 (Woodbridge, 2003), p.5.
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© 2007 Glen O’Hara
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O’Hara, G. (2007). Introduction. In: From Dreams to Disillusionment. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230625488_1
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