Word: brittan
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Board Member Samuel Brittan, economics columnist for London's Financial Times, predicted that growth will rise from 3% in 1986 to 3.5% this year and push the unemployment rate down slightly, from 11.4% to 10.7%. Brittan hopes the pound will stabilize at more or less its current level. Further substantial declines in the currency, he said, could begin to put pressure on the British inflation rate by making imports more expensive...
...Samuel Brittan, an economics columnist and assistant editor of London's Financial Times, admitted that "the outlook for world trade liberalization is not good," but added, "The surprise is that it is not worse." He noted that the volume of world trade is expected to grow at least 4% to 5% this year. That is a mild increase over 1985, but only half the 1984 rate. Brittan singled out nontariff barriers to trade, like voluntary quotas, as particular villains in that sluggishness...
...investigation into the leak by Thatcher's Cabinet secretary and head of the domestic civil service, Sir Robert Armstrong, showed that it had originated in the Prime Minister's own office. Faced with this damaging evidence, Thatcher last week told the House that it was Brittan's staff at the Trade and Industry Ministry that had actually leaked the letter. The investigation, she explained, had shown that the ministry aides "acted in good faith in the knowledge that they had the authority (of Brittan) and cover from my office for proceeding." As for her personal involvement, Thatcher insisted that...
...Conservatives rallied around their embattled Prime Minister, but the Tory backbenchers overwhelmingly demanded Brittan's ouster. They were particularly dismayed at the lack of political judgment he had displayed in the whole affair. Cranley Onslow, a leader of the group, met with Brittan and said, "You must know where your duty lies." The Minister then dutifully penned his resignation. Trumpeted the Times of London in a headline the following day: GOVERNMENT SHAKEN AT PUBLIC HUMILIATION...
...believe, however, that Brittan's resignation will end the questions about Thatcher's role in the affair. An emergency parliamentary debate is scheduled this week on the Westland controversy. Labor Leader Neil Kinnock gave the Prime Minister a taste of the attacks she can expect when he called the leak the action of a government "not just rotten to the core but rotten from the core." Thatcher is certain to respond in kind...