Why Britain’s Treasury must change its ways

On SeptemberthIMF 28 1976 Denis Healey was at Heathrow airport waiting to fly to a meeting of the when news reached him that the pound was tumbling. The chancellor rushed back to Whitehall to announce that he would ask the fund for a £1.9bn ($3.9bn) loan, around 5% of the government’s budget. Britain is bust, was the blunt verdict of . The Treasury was blamed for the loss of fiscal credibility that might have reassured the markets.This was no isolated trauma. From devaluations to bank bail-outs, economic crises have helped shape the psyche of Britain’s finance ministry. “The disasters of 1967, 1976, 1992, 2008 and September 2022 are etched in the collective consciousness,” said Lord Macpherson, the department’s top official in 2005-16, last year.