Labour Prime Minister of the 1976 IMF crisis and the Winter of Discontent
Born into a working-class family in Portsmouth, Callaghan was a tax inspector and then a trade union official before entering Parliament in 1945. As Chancellor of the Exchequer (1964–1967) he faced the devaluation of sterling in 1967, and after serving as Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary he was Prime Minister from 1976 to 1979. In the IMF loan negotiations of 1976 he won much smaller spending cuts than first demanded, and at that year's party conference said that the option of spending your way out of a recession "no longer exists". After the strikes of the 1978–1979 "Winter of Discontent" he lost the 1979 election to Margaret Thatcher.
Also known as: Leonard James Callaghan · Jim Callaghan
Activities and affiliations
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1945–2005
Government and administration
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1964–1967
United Kingdom state institutionsChancellor of the Exchequer
Government and administration -
1976–1979
United Kingdom state institutionsPrime MinisterMain
Government and administration -
1976–1980
Political and party leadership
Career Timeline
- 1945–1987Member of Parliament
- 1964–1967Chancellor of the Exchequer
- 1967–1970Home Secretary
- 1974–1976Foreign Secretary
- 1976–1980Leader of the Labour Party
- 1976.04.05–1979Prime Minister
Related historical events
- 1971.08.15–1980The crisis of the 1970s: the Nixon shock, the oil shocks and stagflationBritish Prime MinisterBecame Prime Minister in 1976, accepted the IMF loan and told the Labour conference that the option of spending one's way out of a recession no longer existed.
- 1979.05.04–1985.09.22The neoliberal turn: the Volcker shock, Thatcher and ReaganBritish Prime MinisterLost the general election of 1979, just after the Winter of Discontent, to Thatcher's Conservatives.