Sometimes a stamp issue can be overly optimistic about the future. A little bit of optimism is a good thing, but at some point credibility is lost. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Every week, the British Queen sits down with the Prime Minister and receives a report on the state of things. As with question time in the House of Commons, this potentially is a useful way to hold the PM to account. Queen Elizabeth II has been on the throne so long that her first Prime Minister was Winston Churchill all the way through to Theresa May, assuming she is still Prime Minister in a few weeks when this publishes. Update, nope! I have often wondered what these meetings were like. This stamp is how I picture it. The Queen siting there while the PM gives a report that is long on sunshine and perhaps short on reality. Get real Mr. Prime Minister, turn this stamp upside down and tell the real story.
Todays stamp is issue A157, a 2 and one/half Pence stamp issued by Great Britain on November 14, 1962. It was a three stamp issue celebrating national productivity year. According to the Scott catalog, this stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint or used. There is a rare version of the 1 Shilling 3P stamp of this issue that mistakenly omits the portrait of Queen Elizabeth. It is worth $16.000.
The reality of British industrial productivity was somewhat less rosy than it appears on this stamp. In 1961, Britain was the ninth most productive nation on earth. By 1978, it had fallen to number 18th. Both Labour and Tory governments of the period had radically increased social services spending. Though the spending was not spent as efficiently as would be hoped, there was a marked increase in the income of the lower class. The spending however created inflation and caused the Pound to be devalued from 2.8 USA dollars to the Pound to 2 for one. This understates the depreciation as the US$ was itself depreciating.
The improvement in the lot of the lower class unexpectedly devalued the value of work to the next higher working class. This class was heavily unionized and so their devaluation resulted in more radical demands for wage increases. These could not be met and the result was large levels of labor strife, most famously a coal miners strike. Other factors played into this like the stock market decline and the Arab oil embargo.
Britain was ready for a change in 1978 but of course not everyone will approve of any big change. The productivity in 2015(the newest I could find) has Great Britain at number 15. Luxembourg is number 1, the USA number 5. China and India do not figure high on such list as the GNP output per employed person is quite low.
Well my drink is empty and I am always willing to pour another to toast Queen Elizabeth. Imagine the number of hot air sessions she has had to sit politely through over these many years. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.