preached Monetarism to discredit Keynesianism. Keith Joseph played a major role as an advisor to Thatcher. Keynesianism itself seemed no longer to be the magic bullet for economic crises of the 1970s. Mark Kesselman et al. argue: In 1972, Chancellor of the Exchequer Anthony Barber introduced a tax-cutting budget. A brief "Barber Boom" followed but ended in stagflation and (effectively) devaluation of sterling. Global events such as the 1973 oil crisis put pressure on the post-war consensus; this pressure was intensified by domestic problems such as high inflation, the three-day week and industrial unrest (particularly in the declining coal-mining industry). In early 1976, expectations that inflation and the double deficit would get worse precipitated a sterling crisis. By October, the pound had fallen by almost 25% against the dollar. At this point the Bank of England had exhausted its foreign reserves trying to prop up the currency, and as a result the Callaghan government felt forced to ask the International Monetary Fund for a £2.3 billion loan, then the largest that the IMF had ever made. In return the IMF demanded massive spending cuts and a tightening of the money supply. That marked a suspension of Keynesian economics in Britain. Callaghan reinforced this message in his speech to the Labour Party Conference at the height of the crisis, saying: A cause of the supposed collapse of the post war consensus is the idea of the state overload thesis, chiefly examined in the UK by political scientist Anthony King. He summarises the chain of events as saying "Once upon a time, then, man looked to God to order the World. Then he looked to the market. Now he looks to government". It is suggested that due to the increased demand on the government during the consensus years, that an imbalance grew between what was possible to deliver and the demands that had been created. The process is defined as being cyclical: "more demands means more government intervention, which generates yet more expectations". It is believed that these qualms with the consensus are what led, in part, to the emergence of the New Right and Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher reversed other elements of the post-war consensus, as when her Housing Act 1980 allowed the residents to buy their flats. Thatcher did keep key elements of the post-war consensus, such as nationalised health care. She promised Britons in 1982 that the National Health Service