Britain is suffering a catastrophic economic shock that resembles the one that knocked the economy sideways in the 1970s, but strike action by workers offered below-inflation pay rises ranks low on the list of similarities.
The UK is being affected by inflationary pressures and steadily rising wage demands, but both remain modest by comparison with the 1970s. Much more important are the circumstances of 21st-century life, which are very different from those that prevailed almost five decades ago.
For one thing, the 1970s was a decade of widespread trade union membership and relatively high benefits for workers made unemployed. Millions of pensioners, on the other hand, huddled for warmth around a two-bar electric fire, forced to scratch a living on Europe’s lowest state pension.
It was a time of mass production, mass consumption and the public ownership of utility companies and major employers in sectors including telecoms, rail,…
