The Tory ‘dash for growth’ is doomed – it has failed not once, but twice before

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The announcement of Kwasi Kwarteng’s “mini-Budget” and its singular focus upon economic growth elicited film footage from the 1970s, accompanied by numerous accounts of a new “dash for growth”. Well, they got it wrong – the 1972-74 boom was actually the “Barber boom”, named after Anthony Barber, Ted Heath’s chancellor, who stated that the aim was “to achieve a rate of growth twice as fast as in the past decade”. His fourth chancellor in only five years, Reginald Maudling, was the only one who shared his approach; and the “dash for growth” began – two years before an election was needed, with the Conservatives way behind in the polls. To keep up to speed with all the latest opinions and comment sign up to our free weekly Voices Dispatches newsletter by clicking here The subsequent misnamed “Barber boom”, named after the chancellor, saw the Treasury’s influence at one of its lowest ebbs.