Underappreciated

When we come to write the economic history of the 1990s (and there will be lots of them), people will be surprised at the hostility and reputation for incompetence that the Conservative government of the time will be held. Major's personal reputation may have been slightly rehabilitated in recent years, but largely as a result of him being seen a nice chap, with interesting sidelines, rather than anything he did in office.

Reading the obituaries of Eddie George, who died today, reminds me just how unfair this is. Given where we are now (as the centre-left finally realise that it is hard to get economies to work and stay working). it is striking how little credit goes to the mid 90s Tory policy on this issue, which actually took a deep-seated problem in the UK economy (high inflation) and fixed it. This of course contrasts with our current position where we took a positive position and tanked it. Labour claimed credit for this once, but they did nothing towards achieving it, only reaping the rewards.

Eddie George gets an enormous amount of credit - it's never easy being a central banker, especially when (as in the 90s) the Chancellor can override you as Clarke did a couple of times. Yet, despite the heightened tension of a recovering, but still weak, economy, he worked better with his meddlesome master than Brown and King appeared to have done. And he got the job done, while having time for jokes, the BBC obit reprises the old one about there being three kinds of economics, ones who can count and those that can't. Few other people will note his passing today, but he deserves to be remembered and he deserves to take credit for a very difficult job well done.