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Angered by Heath's adoption of a prices and incomes policy - a clear breach of a manifesto promise - and his failure to curb union influence, Tebbit resigned from the government.

With prices rising far faster than incomes, policy makers are concerned borrowers are taking on ever-larger amounts of debt, leaving them vulnerable to an economic downturn.

Over the weekend, at our party’s AGM, we launched an incomes policy which would create the most significant changes to New Zealand’s welfare system in a generation.

In reality, untouched by middle-aged poetic melancholy or a national prices and incomes policy, I could at least look forward to a squint at someone's dog-eared copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover, and the Beatles' next LP.

This despite the fact that they could not deliver their members to agreed policies, and the third year of an incomes policy had collapsed.