I had been wondering how to get out of the Observer when Donald MacDougall, then economic director of the National Economic Development Council (NEDC), asked me how long I wanted to remain a journalist. It was common knowledge that MacDougall was likely to move to a new Department of Economic Affairs if Labour won the election and that he was looking for recruits.

My time at the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) - basically the calendar year 1965 with a month tagged on to both ends - was important mainly for the contacts I made and the subsequent belief of people that I was writing about Whitehall from experience. Treasury officials would say to me, 'Why dont you go back to the FT and we can talk to you again?', so distrustful were they of the DEA.

The DEA did not hold any of the levers of power and its influence depended entirely on George Brown's voice in Cabinet. Brown would occasionally talk to me about 'the government which you don't support'. His instinct was right. I had voted Labour in 1964 because I hoped without much confidence that Wilson would honour his own pledge and strike a blow against nuclear proliferation by abandoning the British deterrent. But on the economic side, I had backed Maudlings dash for growth as the most radical show in town and was horrified that the incoming Labour government shattered confidence by shouting from the rooftops about the overall payments deficit it had inherited - very minor by later standards.

On my arrival MacDougall asked if I would mind going to the Information Department. My instinct not to argue was confirmed when I found the working economists sitting in a large room at desks all equipped with hand calculators which looked like pencil sharpeners. It is only in posts near to the level of Chief Economic Adviser that an economist who is not a statistician at heart can make an impact.

Some of my friends say that someone less introverted would have concentrated on getting close to George Brown. There were points in Brown's favour and he was often nearer the mark than the more erudite Wilson; but he did not have the genius that would have made his faults forgivable. Much has been made of his tendency to be the worse for wear after liquor. But he was at his most bullying when sober, especially with Labour Party officials whose jobs were at risk.

I left the DEA when the Financial Times offered me the post of economic editor and I returned like a homing pigeon. At first I was inhibited by the self-denying ordinance of the British press in not mentioning devaluation. Nevertheless, I did write for PEP a pamphlet entitled Inquest on planning in Britain (Brittan 1967), which was devoted to showing how nothing else would work unless the UK devalued or floated sterling. Even PEP had to be prodded into publishing. It was some months after the November 1967 devaluation that Newton at last agreed that I should write a weekly Economic Viewpoint.

{9 The Bogus Dilemma>>>}