Five Budgets that left their mark on history – for good and bad

Some chancellors made a mark on politics, perhaps in ways they never intended, as Sean O’Grady explains

Kwasi Kwarteng tanked the economy in the autumn of 2022 (PRU/AFP/Getty)

It remains to be seen if Jeremy Hunt’s last spring Budget before the election makes much impact on his party’s chances of winning a fifth term. In truth, Budgets tend to be ephemeral things with measures reversed by successive administrations – or even by the same chancellor. However, a few Budgets did leave their mark on history, for good and bad reasons…

1981: Geoffrey Howe

This Budget, coupled with a very tough spending settlement in the 1981 autumn statement, marked an ideological as well as political break with post-war traditions. Despite some moves in this direction during the previous Labour government, this was the first truly monetarist budget, placing money supply and targets for public borrowing and inflation ahead of considerations about unemployment. Previously, almost every government of both parties since the Second World War believed that achieving very low joblessness – “full employment” – was the overriding aim of government policy, even if it was getting more difficult to achieve amid bouts of inflation and price and wage controls that broke down.