[The first task is to beat inflation.] Until we do, every wage rise which is not met from higher production is a ticket to the dole queue. That is wh… - James Callaghan

We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. Higher inflation followed by higher unemployment. We have just escaped from the highest rate of inflation this country has known; we have not yet escaped from the consequences: high unemployment. That is the history of the last twenty years.

We should be aiming in the latter part of the 1960s for a 5 per cent. and then a 6 per cent. growth rate. Only then shall we attain the programme of social expenditure that is both necessary and desirable.

I'll tell you what happened. We lost the Election because people didn't get their dustbins emptied, because commuters were angry about train disruption and because of too much union power. That's all there is to it.