A Taxing Task: Combating Britain's Relative Decline in the 1960s

The 1960s was a particularly rich period in the history of UKtax reform The decade also saw an ambitious attempt by the UKgovernment to reverse Britain's relative economic decline viathe adoption of a ‘Keynesian-plus’ package of enhanceddemand management, incomes policy, and indicative planning.This article argues that the two phenomena were closely related.It argues that the new Keynesian-plus policy framework transcendedparty ideology and led both the Conservative government andits Labour successor to use the tax system in a constructiveattempt to intervene in the economy to try and raise growth.Nevertheless,despite a high level of elite consensus on the need to makethe tax structure more growth oriented, and despite a good dealof policy continuity between the two governments, viewed asa whole the changes that were made lacked coherence. A combinationof Britain's adversarial party system, a tradition of secretivegovernment Policy-making, and the profound fragmentation ofBritish policy-making, institutions made it impossible to deviseand implement a strategic programme of reform.