While I think the different behaviour of inflation and interest rates is the biggest change between then and now, there are a number of other factors that contributed to our difficulties in earlier times that are not present now.
I have listed these before, but there is no harm in doing so again: •  There were large rises in real wages that squeezed the business sector in the 1970s and 1980s. This time wages have grown at a reasonably steady 3½ per cent per annum over the past year or two.