How successful was the National Government in tackling the economic problems faced from 1931-39?

... How successful was the National Government in tackling the economic problems faced from 1931-39? In order to evaluate the success of the National Government in tackling the economic problems from 1931-39, one must split these economic problems into categories, and then look at the successes and failures of the government. The categories to look at are the balancing of the budget, the gold standard, unemployment (and assistance), cheap money and regional policies. Firstly the failures of the National Government will be looked at. With the Budget, there was the almost immediate incorrect prediction that the budget was heading for a large deficit. This was an immediate failure because it was completely wrong, and because of this incorrect prediction, there was the speculative selling of the Sterling and the decrease in expenditure and 10% reduction in unemployment benefit. Spending continued to rise as unemployment continued to rise up to a peak of 2.8

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