One glance at the gilt market will tell a very different story though.
While gilt yields peaked at 16% in 1974, we are now trading close at a post-war low of 2%. Retail Price Index inflation is close to 5% versus a peak of 27% in 1975 and more importantly, despite the relatively high rate of inflation and aggressive QE by the Bank of England, inflation expectations may have picked up on some measures, but not to any great extent.
And while the number and frequency of strikes will no doubt rise over the coming months, we are still a long way from the type of sustained industrial unrest seen in the 1960s and 1970s.
So on the surface things appear to be bad, but we’ve survived much worse and come out the other side.
However, looked at another way the current situation is more problematic than in the 1970s. As the 1980s took hold, labour markets were reformed, inflation fell and reductions in interest rates and financial liberalisation enabled debt-fuelled growth to take hold. This period continued with a few interruptions right up to the recession of 2008/9.
Now we find that we cannot repeat the same trick twice and the recent forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility point to a period of austerity and low growth which will last longer than anything we experienced in the 1970s.
While the UK government and central bank retain some degree of control over the UK economy, to a large extent the domestic outlook depends on resolving a much larger problem of global imbalances, brought about by rigid exchange rates.
