A chancellor's 1925 decision to rejoin the gold standard was blamed for a decade of pain

In 1925, Winston Churchill, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, returned Britain to the gold standard at its pre-war exchange rate, which most economists now agree overvalued the pound by around 10%. John Maynard Keynes attacked the move at once in his pamphlet 'The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill,' arguing the overvalued currency would force wage cuts and strangle exports. Britain abandoned the gold standard again in 1931, and Churchill later called the decision his biggest mistake.

— John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill — 1925 pamphlet