How we remember the 1980s matters. Along with its twin-decade, the 1970s, it acts as a lesson, in British media-land, for how the economy works.
The conventional story goes like this: in the 1970s, there was too much social democracy. The rich were taxed too much, workers were paid too much, too many industries were nationalised and the unions were too powerful. Inflation got out of control and everyone got poorer.
In the 1980s, supposedly, Margaret Thatcher and her wizard chancellor Nigel Lawson came along. They slashed taxes, smashed the unions, and dashed nationalised industries on the rocks of privatisation. The City of London swelled in what was dubbed ‘The Lawson Boom’ and ‘the Big Bang’. Suddenly, so the story goes, the country got richer.
