"In January 1972, although the jobless total adjusted for seasonal factors remained below one million, the unadjusted overall total exceeded that. The Commons had to be suspended during the Prime Minister's Questions following Labour's furious protests. This in itself did not shake Ted, but he utterly despised and detested the pre-war Conservative governments, who had tolerated between two and three million unemployed. It was therefore no surprise in which direction Ted decided our economic policy should go when he now had to choose between tolerating a continued high level of unemployment, in the hope that this would keep some control over wage claims and inflation – or trying to run the economy with a higher level of output and growth, and seeking some other means of control over wage and price increases. The high unemployment route was counter to everything Ted believed in and had hoped to achieve for Britain."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandAnglicans from the United KingdomMemoirists from EnglandConservative Party (UK) politicians
Original Language: English
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Sources
Jim Prior, A Balance of Power (1986), p. 74
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edward_Heath
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Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George Heath KG MBE (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath also served for 51 years as a Member of Parliament from 1950 to 2001.
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