With the change of 15 prime ministers, what kind of economic ups and downs has the Queen of England experienced in 70 years？
On September 8, in London, England, Queen Elizabeth II passed away, and piccadilly circus projected a picture of the Queen. Figure /IC
During his 70 years in office, he witnessed 15 British prime ministers.
According to the British royal family, on September 8, local time, Queen Elizabeth II died in Balmoral Castle, Scotland, at the age of 96. And his last public appearance stopped at appointing a new British prime minister. On September 6th, Liz Trass, who was just elected as the leader of the British Conservative Party, accepted the formal appointment of Queen Elizabeth II in Scotland and became the new British Prime Minister.
From Winston Churchill to Liz Trass, Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years, becoming the longest monarch in Britain, and at the same time, she experienced the ups and downs of the British economy from stagflation to prosperity and several crises. Today, Britain is still in the vortex of Brexit and COVID-19 epidemic, facing problems such as weak growth, energy crisis and serious inflation.
On September 6, local time, Liz Trass accepted the official appointment of Queen Elizabeth II and became the new British Prime Minister.
15 prime ministersChange: once walked outdecline
On September 6th, local time, 47-year-old Trass became the new British Prime Minister and the third female Prime Minister after Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May in British history.
Before the appointment of Trass, the Queen of England had accepted the formal resignation submitted by Boris Johnson earlier in the day. Only three years later, Britain officially bid farewell to the "Johnson era" and moved towards the "Trass era".
In fact, Trass’s victory this time is the fourth phase change in Britain in the past six years.
Elizabeth II was born in April 1926, the first child of the Duke of York (later King George VI). In February 1952, King George VI died, and Princess Elizabeth ascended the throne and became Queen Elizabeth II. In 2015, she became the longest-serving British monarch in history, breaking the record set by her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. Up to this year, Elizabeth II has been in office for 70 years.
When Elizabeth II became Queen, the then British Prime Minister was Churchill. Since the end of Churchill’s term in 1955, all British prime ministers have been appointed by Elizabeth II. After the appointment of the new Prime Minister Trass, he has intersected with 15 prime ministers, including Margaret Thatcher, who led Britain to a liberal market economy.
In the late 1970s, the western economy fell into a stagflation predicament, and Keynesianism began to decline. The monetarist school represented by Friedman developed the neo-liberal economic theory. Thatcher in Britain and President Reagan in the United States followed the neo-liberal economic theory to formulate economic policies, and gradually spread the neo-liberal policies to the whole world.
Thatcher served as British Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, and her three terms lasted for 11 years. Before Thatcher took office, the British economy was already in a serious recession. According to the data of the World Bank (the economic data below are all from the World Bank), in 1974 and 1975, Britain’s GDP was negative for two consecutive years, while inflation was high. In 1975, the inflation rate (measured by the consumer price index) was as high as 24.2%. After Thatcher took office, she implemented a series of economic policies, emphasizing the role of market mechanism, reducing state intervention, and implementing privatization and monetarism policies, which achieved obvious results.
Since 1982, the British economy has maintained eight years of growth, and the fiscal deficit that lasted for 18 years began to turn into a surplus in 1987. At the same time, the annual inflation rate in Britain dropped from more than 20% to less than 4% in the mid-1980s. Britain and the United States simultaneously turned to the neo-liberal economy and achieved success, breaking the systems of big government and welfare state that prevailed in western countries after World War II. In this sense, Thatcher not only saved the British economy, but also played an important role in the transformation of the world economic structure.
There have been rumors among the people that the Queen and Thatcher are at odds, especially after the global hit of the TV series "Crown" in recent years, the relevant plot has made the audience have many speculations. However, according to NBC and other media reports, British historians and royal biographers said that the Queen is unlikely to directly challenge any policy decisions of the Prime Minister. Thatcher wrote in her autobiography: "Although the media can’t help reporting the dispute between Buckingham Palace and Downing Street, I always feel that the Queen’s attitude towards the government is absolutely correct."
After Thatcher’s death in 2013, Elizabeth II also made an exception to attend Thatcher’s funeral.
According to the British political tradition, the Queen must remain strictly neutral in political affairs, and cannot take a personal political stand. One of her duties is to ensure the stability of the political situation, and she must play the role of a non-partisan and play a role of stability and balance. The Queen does not vote or stand for election, but she has an important meaning of etiquette and a formal role in the British government. The official name of the British government is "Her Majesty’s Government", and the official name of the British legislature is "Queen in Parliament". The duties of the Queen include approving legislation, approving orders and announcements through the Privy Council, appointing the Prime Minister, and meeting with the Prime Minister regularly.
The Queen meets with the Prime Minister once a week, and she has the right and obligation to express her opinions on government affairs. According to media reports, most British prime ministers who worked with Elizabeth II spoke highly of her.
British economyAfter several ups and downs,queenWitness the "tug of war" of Brexit
In the past 70 years, Elizabeth II has experienced several ups and downs of the British economy-stagflation after World War II, prosperity brought by Thatcher’s New Deal, recession in the 1990s, economic downturn caused by the financial crisis in 2008 and the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020.
Thatcher’s series of powerful reform policies made Britain get rid of the image of "the patient of Europe" and show rare vitality. However, in the 1990s, the British economy reappeared in recession. According to the data of the World Bank, the GDP growth rate of Britain dropped from the high point of 5.7% in 1988 to 0.7% in 1990. It fell to a negative value in 1991, and the growth rate rebounded slightly in 1992, but it was still only 0.4%.
The recession in Britain is related to the changes in the external markets such as the United States and the European Union. Under the promotion of investment and export expansion, Britain took the lead in getting rid of the recession among the EU countries in the second half of 1993, with an annual economic growth rate of 2.5%, and the growth rate further increased to 3.8% in 1994. By the beginning of 1995, the British economy had successfully shaken off the recession and entered a new round of prosperity, and then continued to the financial crisis in 2008 with an economic growth rate of 2%-5%.
At the time of this recession, the current British Prime Minister was john major. As Thatcher’s successor, her economic policy basically continued Thatcherism, and she privatized railways during her tenure.
In 1960, Britain’s GDP was still less than $800 billion (calculated at constant prices in 2015, the same below), and it grew slowly to exceed $1 trillion in 1970; After the implementation of Thatcher’s New Deal, Britain’s GDP exceeded $1.8 trillion in 1990, and it exceeded $2 trillion in 1996 after the economic recession in the early 1990s resumed its growth momentum. In 2007, Britain’s GDP reached 2.73 trillion US dollars.
John Van Reinan, a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, pointed out that since 1979, the British economy has achieved remarkable success, ending its weakness relative to other developed countries for about a century. According to the data of the World Federation of Large Enterprises, in 1979, Britain’s per capita GDP (calculated by purchasing power parity) was 76% of that of the United States, lower than that of France; By 2007, the per capita GDP of Britain had risen to 83% of that of the United States, far exceeding that of France. This proves that the market-oriented regulatory reform has indeed improved the performance of the British economy, but it has also brought about problems such as rising inequality and too lax financial supervision.
After the financial crisis in 2008, the growth rate of British GDP dropped to-4.2% in 2009; After one year, it resumed positive growth, and maintained a relatively uniform growth until 2019. In 2019, the total GDP of the UK reached 3.19 trillion US dollars. After the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, the British economy suffered more setbacks than during the financial crisis. In 2020, the economy grew negatively by 9.3%, and the total GDP dropped sharply to 2.90 trillion US dollars. In 2021, Britain’s GDP rose to $3.11 trillion, but it has not recovered to the pre-epidemic level.
Today’s Britain, under the influence of geopolitical conflicts and energy crisis, the inflation rate has reached the highest level in 40 years. In July this year, the consumer price inflation rate has jumped to more than 10%, and the economy is once again facing the risk of recession, which has become a major challenge after the new Prime Minister Trass took office.
It is worth mentioning that Elizabeth II experienced the whole process of the "tug-of-war" of Brexit, during which the British Prime Minister changed three times from David Cameron, theresa may to Boris Johnson.
After the Brexit referendum in 2016 decided to start the process of leaving the EU, Cameron announced his resignation and was replaced by theresa may. Theresa may started the Brexit process during his term of office, but in 2019, he resigned under the pressure of the party because the party and even the Congress failed to reach a consensus on the Brexit plan. Subsequently, Boris Johnson took over as Prime Minister and completed the Brexit process during his term of office.
After Brexit, Britain’s trade rules were reconstructed, the import and export costs increased, the supply chain was affected, and at the same time, there was a shortage of labor. The concept of "Global Britain" envisioned by Johnson was not formed. The negative comments of British domestic people on Brexit exceed the positive comments. A poll at the end of 2021 showed that over 60% of British respondents thought that the result of Brexit was negative or worse than expected.
The first British monarch to visit China, the trade volume between China and Britain has exceeded 100 billion in half a century.
On the political level, the duties of the Queen include supporting the opening ceremony of the new session of Parliament, appointing the Prime Minister, making state visits and receiving state guests visiting Britain. Externally, the Queen is the representative of Britain, so diplomacy is an important duty of the Queen.
Elizabeth II is the most visited monarch in British history. During her reign, she visited more than 300 overseas countries and 117 countries and regions.
In October 1986, Elizabeth II paid a six-day state visit to China, becoming the first British monarch to visit China. Deng Xiaoping met with the Queen of England.
In October 2015, at the invitation of Elizabeth II, the Supreme Leader of president, China paid a state visit to the United Kingdom, and the Queen of England was received by the Royal Supreme Court.
During this visit to Britain, China and Britain reached a series of cooperation results, including signing intergovernmental and non-commercial agreements, such as a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in emerging industries, and signing commercial agreements, such as a long-term natural gas trade agreement. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, there are as many as 28 commercial agreements signed between China and Britain, with a total value of nearly 40 billion pounds.
The Supreme Leader pointed out that the industrial structures of China and Britain are highly complementary, the concept of jointly advocating open markets is similar, and the willingness to promote free trade and expand two-way investment is the same. There is great potential for China-UK cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.
2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level between China and Britain. Over the past half century, Sino-British trade cooperation has been developing continuously. The trade volume between the two countries has increased from 300 million US dollars to 100 billion US dollars, and the stock of bilateral investment has increased from almost zero to nearly 50 billion US dollars. China has become Britain’s third largest trading partner and the largest source of goods imports.
In 2021, in the face of repeated COVID-19 epidemic, the world economy recovered difficultly, and the British trade structure changed after Brexit, and the Sino-British economic, trade and investment cooperation grew against the trend. In 2021, the bilateral trade in goods between China and Britain exceeded 100 billion US dollars, and the stock of two-way direct investment between China and Britain reached 47.8 billion US dollars, an increase of nearly 5 billion US dollars over that before the epidemic.
In addition, the financial cooperation between the two countries is close. In 2021, the amount of offshore RMB settlement in London exceeded 60 trillion yuan, and the central banks of the two countries renewed the bilateral local currency swap agreement, with the swap scale of 350 billion yuan/40 billion pounds in the next five years.
According to media reports, in 2022, China and Britain will hold the 11th China-UK Economic and Financial Dialogue in due course, which will inject new impetus into bilateral cooperation and bring new opportunities to China-UK economic and trade cooperation.
Beijing News Shell Finance Reporter Gu Zhijuan Editor Wang Jinyu Proofread Liu Baoqing
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