The last British experiment with government wage controls was in the late 1960s, when the National Board for Prices and Incomes was given the task of assuaging the doubts of international bankers (the "gnomes of Zurich") and staving off a sterling crisis by capping wage increases.
I happen to recall this because my father worked for the board at the time and, when Harold Wilson's government fell in 1970 and the board was scrapped, he lost his job. What was bad for the Gappers was, however, good for the economy. It started three decades of deregulation, accelerated by the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979.
