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Black Wednesday
Black Wednesday (or the 1992 Sterling crisis) occurred on 16 September 1992 when the UK Government was forced to withdraw sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), after a failed attempt to keep its exchange rate above the lower limit required for the ERM participation. At that time, the United Kingdom held the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The crisis damaged the credibility of the second Major ministry in handling of economic matters. The ruling Conservative Party suffered a landslide defeat five years later at the 1997 United Kingdom general election and did not return to power until 2010. The rebounding of the UK economy in the years after Black Wednesday has been attributed to the fall in the value of sterling and the replacement of the ERM with an inflation targeting monetary stability policy. Prelude When the ERM was set up in 1979, the United Kingdom declined to join. This was a controversial decision, as the Chancellor of the E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
D GBPDEM 1992
D, or d, is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''dee'' (pronounced ), plural ''dees''. History The Semitic letter Dāleth may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are many different Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek and Latin, the letter represented ; in the Etruscan alphabet the letter was archaic, but still retained (see letter B). The equivalent Greek letter is Delta, Δ. Architecture The minuscule (lower-case) form of 'd' consists of a lower-story left bowl and a stem ascender. It most likely developed by gradual variations on the majuscule (capital) form 'D', and today now composed as a stem with a full lobe to the right. In handwriting, it was common to start the arc to the left of the vertical stroke, resulting in a serif at the top of the arc. This serif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Bold Stroke For A Wife
''A Bold Stroke for a Wife'' is Susanna Centlivre's 18th-century satirical English play first performed in 1718. The plot expresses the author's unabashed support of the British Whig Party: she criticises the Tories, religious hypocrisy, and the greed of capitalism. Synopsis Set in 18th-century England, the play tells the story of a military officer who wants to marry a young woman. His obstacles are the four guardians who watch over Anne Lovely. Each of the four has his own idea of the ideal husband. The catch is that each is disagreeable in his own way, and they can't possibly see eye to eye on a man for Anne. To gain Miss Lovely's hand in marriage, soldier Colonel Fainwell must convince the four guardians that he will make an ideal husband. Fainwell takes the bold stroke of wearing elaborate disguises, four of which mimic the personalities and occupations of each of the guardians in turn: an antiquarian, an old beau, a Quaker, and an exchange broker. In all, Fainwell do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maastricht Treaty
The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the process of European integration" chiefly in provisions for a shared European citizenship, for the eventual introduction of a single currency, and (with less precision) for common foreign and security policies. Although these were widely seen to presage a " federal Europe", the focus of constitutional debate shifted to the later 2007 Treaty of Lisbon. In the wake of the Eurozone debt crisis unfolding from 2009, the most enduring reference to the Maastricht Treaty has been to the rules of compliance – the "Maastricht criteria" – for the currency union. Against the background of the end of the Cold War and the re-unification of Germany, and in anticipation of accelerated globalisation, the treaty negotiated tensions between membe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double Deficit (economics)
A country's economy has a double deficit when it is operating in deficit on two important metrics: the government budget balance and the current account (balance of payments). A deficit in the government's budget balance means that the government is spending in excess of taxation revenue and the deficit is made good by borrowing, which adds to the national debt. While borrowing for investment purposes is generally seen as wise, to do so to fund routine recurrent expenditure is not. A country's current account records the value of exports and imports of both goods and services and international transfers of capital. It is one of the two components of its balance of payments, the other being the capital account (also known as the financial account). Current account measures the nation's earnings and spendings abroad and it consists of the balance of trade, net ''primary income'' or ''factor income'' (earnings on foreign investments minus payments made to foreign investors) and net u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Reunification
German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the German Reunification Treaty entered into force dissolving the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: link=no, Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR, or East Germany) and integrating its recently re-established constituent federated states into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: link=no, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, BRD, or West Germany) to form present-day Germany, has been chosen as the customary ''German Unity Day'' () and has thereafter been celebrated each year from 1991 as a national holiday. East and West Berlin were united into a single city and eventually became the capital of reunited Germany. The East Germany's government led by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) (a communist party) started to falter on 2 May ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monetary Policy
Monetary policy is the policy adopted by the monetary authority of a nation to control either the interest rate payable for federal funds, very short-term borrowing (borrowing by banks from each other to meet their short-term needs) or the money supply, often as an attempt to reduce inflation or the interest rate, to ensure price stability and general trust of the value and stability of the nation's currency. Monetary policy is a modification of the supply of money, i.e. Money creation, "printing" more money, or decreasing the money supply by changing interest rates or removing excess reserves. This is in contrast to fiscal policy, which relies on taxation, government spending, and government borrowing as methods for a government to manage business cycle phenomena such as recessions. Further purposes of a monetary policy are usually to contribute to the stability of gross domestic product, to achieve and maintain low unemployment, and to maintain predictable exchange rates with o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foreign Secretary
The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as one of the most senior ministers in the government and a Great Office of State, the incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. The office holder works alongside the other Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office#Ministers, Foreign Office ministers. The corresponding shadow minister is the Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. The performance of the secretary of state is also scrutinised by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. The current foreign secretary is James Cleverly MP, appointed in the Truss ministry, September 2022 cabinet reshuffle. Responsibilities Corresponding to what is generally known as a foreign minister in many other countr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Hurd
Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, (born 8 March 1930) is a British Conservative Party politician who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major from 1979 to 1995. A career diplomat and political secretary to Prime Minister Edward Heath, Hurd first entered Parliament in February 1974 as MP for the Mid Oxfordshire constituency (Witney from 1983). His first government post was as Minister for Europe from 1979 to 1983 (being that office's inaugural holder) and he served in several Cabinet roles from 1984 onwards, including Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1984–85), Home Secretary (1985–89) and Foreign Secretary (1989–95). He stood unsuccessfully for the Conservative Party leadership in 1990, and retired from frontline politics during a Cabinet reshuffle in 1995. In 1997, Hurd was elevated to the House of Lords and is one of the Conservative Party's most senior elder statesmen. He is a patron of the Tory Reform Group. He retired ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Major
Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament (MP) for Huntingdon, formerly Huntingdonshire, from 1979 to 2001. Prior to becoming prime minister, he served as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the third Thatcher government. Having left school a day before turning sixteen, Major was elected to Lambeth London Borough Council in 1968, and a decade later to parliament, where he held several junior government positions, including Parliamentary Private Secretary and assistant whip. Following Margaret Thatcher's resignation in 1990, Major stood in the 1990 Conservative Party leadership election to replace her and emerged victorious, becoming prime minister. Two years into his premiership, Major went on to lead the Conservative Party to a fourth consecutive electoral victory, winning more than 14 mil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Walters
Sir Alan Arthur Walters (17 June 1926 – 3 January 2009) was a British economist who was best known as the Chief Economic Adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from 1981 to 1983 and (after his return from the United States) again for five months in 1989. Early life Walters was born in Leicester, and his father was a Communist and a grocer who sold goods from a van. He failed his 11-Plus and attended Alderman Newton's School in Leicester, leaving at fifteen to work as a machine operator in a shoe factory. During World War II, he was called up and joined the British Army as a private. Academic career Walters studied statistics at University College Leicester and then went to Nuffield College, Oxford, where he took an MA in economics. On leaving Nuffield in 1951, he took up a post to teach statistics at Birmingham University, later becoming professor of econometrics and statistics there in the early 1960s. He was one of the first British economists to argue that mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Westminster Hour
''The Westminster Hour'' is a British political news review produced by BBC News, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 each Sunday evening between 22:00 and 23:00 (starting with a national and international news bulletin). The programme began to be broadcast in April 1998. Despite the reference in its title to the Palace of Westminster – meeting-place of the Houses of the United Kingdom Parliament – the programme also deals with topics and events connected with the work of the UK's devolved legislative assemblies in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and London. Presenters The programme is currently hosted (2015) by Carolyn Quinn Carolyn Quinn (born 22 July 1961 in Camberwell, London) is a British journalist best known for her work on BBC Radio 4 as a political correspondent and for presenting the '' Today'' programme and '' PM''. Early life Quinn attended St Joseph's R ... a former presenter of Radio 4's ''Today'' programme. It was previously hosted by the journalist Andrew Rawnsle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime minister and the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies that became known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. Thatcher studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked briefly as a research chemist, before becoming a barrister. She was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970–1974 government. In 1975, she defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become Leader of the Opposition, the first woman to lead a major poli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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