Since 1945 there have been 22 chancellors of the exchequer, 14 of them Conservative and eight Labour.
Which chancellors were the most investor-friendly?
The chart on this page lists the 22 chancellors of the exchequer since 1945 with the years they were in office. For each chancellor, two values are plotted:
- the percentage change in the value of the FTSE All-Share Index during their period in office, and
- the above value adjusted by annualising, to allow for comparison of chancellors in office for different lengths of time.
Observations
- Six chancellors left office with the market lower than when they started: three of these chancellors were Conservative and three were Labour.
- The stock market suffered its worst period under the chancellorship of Alistair Darling (although it must be said that he did not inherit the soundest of economies).
- The chancellor seeing the greatest rise in the market was Nigel Lawson, the market rose 141% during his time in office. That performance was followed by Denis Healey and Derrick Heathcoat-Amory.
- However, looking at the annualised figures we see that the best chancellor for the stock market was Derrick Heathcoat-Amory (who become chancellor the same week that Jerry Lewis’ “Great Balls of Fire” was top of the hit parade).
Data
The data for the chart are below.
| Chancellor | FTAS Rtn(%) | FTAS Rtn ann(%) |
| Hugh Dalton (Lab, 1945-1947) | 12.1 | 5.2 |
| Stafford Cripps (Lab, 1947-1950) | -6.1 | -2.1 |
| Hugh Gaitskell (Lab, 1950-1951) | 12.7 | 12.5 |
| Rab Butler (Con, 1951-1955) | 35.0 | 8.4 |
| Harold Macmillan (Con, 1955-1957) | -2.8 | -2.7 |
| Peter Thorneycroft (Con, 1957-1958) | -11.4 | -11.6 |
| Derrick Heathcoat-Amory (Con, 1958-1960) | 82.6 | 32.4 |
| John Selwyn Lloyd (Con, 1960-1962) | -13.2 | -6.7 |
| Reginald Maudling (Con, 1962-1964) | 22.2 | 9.8 |
| James Callaghan (Lab, 1964-1967) | 20.5 | 6.6 |
| Roy Jenkins (Lab, 1967-1970) | -0.6 | -0.2 |
| Ian Macleod (Con, 1970-1970) | 0.2 | 2.5 |
| Anthony Barber (Con, 1970-1974) | 9.2 | 2.5 |
| Dennis Healey (Lab, 1974-1979) | 103.5 | 20.0 |
| Geoffrey Howe (Con, 1979-1983) | 57.4 | 14.0 |
| Nigel Lawson (Con, 1983-1989) | 141.4 | 22.2 |
| John Major (Con, 1989-1990) | -4.1 | -3.8 |
| Norman Lamont (Con, 1990-1993) | 36.6 | 14.7 |
| Kenneth Clarke (Con, 1993-1997) | 52.0 | 13.2 |
| Gordon Brown (Lab, 1997-2007) | 58.2 | 5.7 |
| Alistair Darling (Lab, 2007-2010) | -17.9 | -6.2 |
| George Osborne (Con, 2010-) | 26.8 | 8.0 |
