‘Planned Growth of Incomes’ or ‘Emergency Gimmick’? The Labour Party, The Social Partners and Incomes Policy, 1964-70

Abstract

Previous attempts to explain Britain's failure to develop an effective incomes policy have tended to focus on general causes. These have included the small scale of industry, the weakness of ‘peak associations’ of employers and trade unionists, or fragmentation and lack of expertise in government. While this article does not attempt to challenge the importance of these factors, it will attempt to tell a more detailed and specific story about Labour's attempt to construct a ‘social bargain’ in the late 1960s. Using recently released documents from the archives of central government, unions and employers, this piece will attempt to show that Labour's confusion as to the aims of incomes policy was another important reason for the policy's failure. Ideological divisions at elite policy-making levels made the whole project less than realistic from the start. While the Government was uncertain as to the aims of policy, trade unions and employers were initially sceptical towards, and later totally opposed to, in...