Rock Bottom: 50 years since Britain's IMF crisis
Historian James Sladden recalls Britain’s 1976 financial crisis and International Monetary Fund bailout - widely seen as a national humiliation that still shapes UK politics.
The UK’s 1977 entry to the Eurovision Song Contest was called Rock Bottom, making fun of the grim political and economic realities of the time.
On stage, an orchestra conductor was dressed as a city businessman, with a pinstripe suit and a bowler hat.
Singers Mike Moran and Lynsey De Paul sat at two grand pianos reading newspapers with headlines about Britain's economic mess, before breaking into song:
‘Where are we?
Rock bottom
Tragedies?
We got 'em
Remedy?
Why don't we rub it out and start it again?’
The entry placed second.
Britain's economic crisis had come to a head a few months earlier, on 28 September 1976.
News broke of a run on the pound. Currency markets were in turmoil. International creditors would no longer lend to the UK.
The country was out of time, and running out of money.
24 hours later, the Labour government of the day announced it was applying to the International Monetary Fund for the largest loan ever made to any government.
The crisis was a watershed moment for post-war Britain. It led to three tense months of negotiations with the IMF, and bitter arguments in both Cabinet and the country.
In this Archive on 4, historian and journalist James Sladden takes us back to that febrile, tumultuous time – and explores why the 1976 IMF crisis still matters today, half a century later.
Producer and presenter: James Sladden
Producer: David Howard
Archive research: Jac Phillimore
Mix engineer: Joel Cox
Executive producer: Carys Wall
With grateful thanks to: Dr Duncan Needham, Professor Kathleen Burk, Mike Moran, Whistledown London studios, and the BBC Radio Archivists team.
A Bespoken Media Scotland production for BBC Radio 4
On radio
Broadcast
- Sat 26 Sep 202620:00BBC Radio 4
