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In the 1945 general election, just after the war’s end, the Labor Party was elected, introducing sweeping reforms of the British economy. Taxes increased, industries were nationalized, and a welfare state with national health, pensions, and social security was created.

The next years saw some of the most rapid growth Britain had ever experienced, recovering from the devastation of the Second World War and then expanding rapidly past the previous size of the economy. By 1959, tax cuts had helped boost living standards and allow for a strong economy and low unemployment.

By the end of the 1960s, this growth began to slow and unemployment was rising again. During the 1970s Britain suffered a long running period of relative economic malaise, dogged by severe inflation, strikes and union power as well as inflation, with neither the Conservative government of 1970-1974 （led by Edward Heath） nor the Labor government which succeeded it （led by Harold Wilson and from 1976 James Callaghan） being able to halt the country’s economic decline.

Unemployment exceeded 1 000 000 by 1972 and had risen even higher by the time the end of the decade was in sight.

This led to the election of Margaret Thatcher, who cut back on the government’s role in the economy and weakened the power of the trade unions. The latter decades of the 20th century have seen an increase in service-providers and a drop in industry, combined with privatization of some sections of the economy. This change has led some to describe this as a‘Third Industrial Revolution’, though this term is not widely used.

After World War II, the British economy had again lost huge amounts of absolute wealth.Its economy was driven entirely for the needs of war and took some time to be reorganized for peaceful production. Anticipating the end of the conflict, the United States had negotiated throughout the war to liberalize post-war trade and the international flow of capital in order to break into markets which had previously been closed to it, including the British Empire’s Pound Sterling bloc. This was to be realized through the Atlantic Charter of 1941, through the establishment of the Bretton Woods system in 1944, and through the new economic power that the U.S. was able to exert due to the weakened British economy.

Immediately after the war had ended, the U.S. halted free Lend-Lease, but did give a large low-interest long-term Anglo-American loan. The winter of 1946–1947 proved to be very harsh curtailing production and leading to shortages of coal which again affected the economy so that by August 1947 when convertibility was due to begin, the economy was not as strong as it needed to be. When the Labor government enacted convertibility, there was a run on Sterling, meaning that Sterling was being traded in for dollars, seen as the new, more powerful and stable currency in the world. This damaged the British economy and within weeks it was stopped. By 1949, the British pound was over valued and had to be devalued. The U.S. began Marshall Plan grants （mostly grants with a few loans） that pumped $3.3 billions into the economy and forced businessmen to modernize their approach to management.

The Labor governments of 1945–1951 enacted a political program rooted in collectivism including the nationalization of industries and state direction of the economy. Both wars had demonstrated the possible benefits of greater state involvement. This underlined the future direction of the post-war economy, and was supported in the main by the Conservatives. However, the initial hopes for nationalization were not fulfilled and more nuanced understandings of economic management emerged, such as state direction, rather than state ownership. Throughout though, the basis remained the same: applying the economic theories of Keynes³and continued state involvement.

The concept of nationalizing the coal mines had been accepted in principle by owners and miners alike before the elections of 1945. The owners were paid £165 000 000. The government set up the National Coal Board to manage the coal mines; and it loaned it£150 000 000 to modernize the system. The general condition of the coal industry has been unsatisfactory for many years, with poor productivity. In 1945 there were 28% more workersin the coal mines than in 1890, but the annual output was only 8% greater. Young people avoided the pits; between 1931 and 1945 the percentage of miners more than 40 years old rose from 35% to 43%, and 24 000 over 65 years old. The number of surface workers decreased between 1938 and 1945 by only 3 200, but in that same time the number of underground workers declined by 69 600, substantially altering the balance of labor in the mines. That accidents, breakdowns, and repairs in the mines were nearly twice as costly in terms of production in 1945 as they had been in 1939 was probably a by-product of the war. Output in 1946 averaged 3 300 000 tons weekly. By summer 1946 it was clear that the country was facing a coal shortage for the upcoming winter with stock piles 5 million tons too low. Nationalization exposed both a lack of preparation for public ownership and a failure to stabilize the industry in advance of the change. Also lacking were any significant incentives to maintain or increase coal production to meet demand. During 1955, unemployment reached a postwar low of just over 215 000—barely 1% of the workforce.

The loss of the Empire and the material losses incurred through two world wars had affected the basis of Britain’s economy. First, its traditional markets were changing as Commonwealth countries made bilateral trade arrangements with local or regional powers. Second, the initial gains Britain made in the world economy were in relative decline as those countries whose infrastructure was seriously damaged by war repaired these and reclaimed a stake in world markets. Third, the British economy changed structure shifting towards a service sector economy from its manufacturing and industrial origins leaving some regions economically depressed. Finally, part of consensus politics meant support of the Welfare State and of a world role for Britain; both of these needed funding through taxes and needed a buoyant economy in order to provide the taxes.

As these factors coalesced during the 1960s, the slogan used by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan “（most of） our people have never had it so good” seemed increasingly hollow. The Conservative government presided over a “stop-go” economy as it tried to prevent inflation spiralling out of control without snuffing out economic growth. Growth continued to struggle, at about only half the rate of that of Germany or France at the same time. However, industry had remained strong in nearly 20 years following the end of the war, and extensive housebuilding and construction of new commercial developments and public buildings also helped unemployment stay low throughout this time.

The Labor Party under Harold Wilson from 1964–1970 was unable to provide a solution either, and eventually was forced to devalue the pound again in 1967. Economist Nicholas Crafts attributes Britain’s relatively low growth in this period to a combination of a lack of competition in some sectors of the economy, especially in the nationalized industries; poor industrial relations and insufficient vocational training. He writes that this was a period of government failure caused by poor understanding of economic theory, short-termism and a failure to confront interest groups.

Both political parties had come to the conclusion that Britain needed to enter the European Economic Community （EEC） in order to revive its economy. This decision came after establishing a European Free Trade Association （EFTA） with other, non EEC countries since this provided little economic stimulus to Britain’s economy. Levels of trade with the Commonwealth halved in the period 1945–1965 to around 25% while trade with the EEC had doubled during the same period. Charles de Gaulle vetoed a British attempt at membership in 1963 and again in 1967.

In 1973 the Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath, led Britain into the EEC. As late as this stage, Britain still effectively had full employment, at a rate of 3% unemployed.

However, with the decline of Britain’s economy during the 1960s, the trade unions began to strike leading to a complete breakdown with both the Labor Government of Harold Wilson and later with the Conservative Government of Edward Heath （1970–1974）. In the early 1970s, the British economy suffered more as strike action by trade unions, plus the effects of the 1973 oil crisis, led to a three-day week in 1973-74. In all, over nine million days were lost to strike action under Heath’s Government alone. However, despite a brief period of calm negotiated by the recently re-elected Labor Government of 1974 known as the Social Contract, a break down with the unions occurred again in 1978, leading to the Winter of Discontent, and eventually leading to the end of the Labor Government, then being led by James Callaghan, who had succeeded Wilson in 1976. The extreme industrial strike along with rising inflation and unemployment led Britain to be nicknamed as the “sick man of Europe”, though the term generally refers to Turkey in the 19th century.

Unemployment had also risen during this difficult period for the British economy; some 1 500 000 people were now unemployed by 1978, nearly treble the figure at the start of the decade, at a national rate of well over 5%. It had exceeded 1 000 000 since 1975. Also in the 1970s, oil was found in the North Sea, off the coast of Scotland.

The election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979 marked the end of the post-war consensus and a new approach to economic policy, including privatization and deregulation, reform of industrial relations, and tax changes. Competition policy was emphasized instead of industrial policy; consequent deindustrialization was more or less accepted. Thatcher’s battles with the unions culminated in the Miners’ Strike of 1984.

The Government applied monetarist policies to reduce inflation, and reduced public spending. Deflationary measures were implemented against the backdrop of the early 1980s recession. As a result, unemployment began to rise sharply from early 1980, to 2 000 000 people by the end of the year and reaching 2 500 000 people during 1981. By January 1982, 3 000 000 people were unemployed in Britain for the first time in 50 years, though this time the figure accounted for a lesser percentage of the early 1930s figures, now standing at around 12.5% rather than in excess of 20%. In areas hit particularly hard by the loss of industry, unemployment was much higher; coming to close to 20% in Northern Ireland and exceeding 15% in many parts of Wales, Scotland and northern England. The peak of unemployment actually came some two years after the recession ended and growth had been re established, when in April 1984 unemployment rose to nearly 3 300 000.

Major state-controlled firms were privatized, including British Aerospace （1981）, British Telecom （1984）, British Leyland （1984）, Rolls-Royce （1987）, and British Steel （1988）. The electricity, gas and English water industries were split up and sold off. Exchange controls, in operation since the war, were abolished in 1979. British net assets abroad rose approximately ninefold from £12 billion at the end of 1979 to nearly £110 billion at the end of 1986, a record post-war level and second only to Japan. Privatization of nationalized industries increased share ownership in Britain: the proportion of the adult population owning shares went up from 7% in 1979 to 25% in 1989. The Single European Act （SEA）, signed by Margaret Thatcher, allowed for the free movement of goods within the European Union area. The ostensible benefit of this was to give the spur of competition to the British economy, and increase its ultimate efficiency.

The early 1980s recession saw unemployment rise above three million, but the subsequent recovery, which saw growth of over 4 per cent in the late 1980s, led to contemporary claims of a British “economic miracle”. It is not clear whether Thatcherism was the only reason for the boom in Britain in the 1980s. However, many of the economic policiesput in place by the Thatcher government have been kept since, and even the Labor Party which had once been so opposed to the policies had by the late 1990s, on its return to government after nearly 20 years in opposition, dropped all opposition to them.

By the end of 1986, Britain was enjoying an economic boom, which saw unemployment go into freefall and drop to 1 600 000 by December 1989.