> That does sound pretty awful.
>
> But if the British were sick of the welfare state and
>nationalization, doesn't that mean they wanted welfare cuts and
>privatization? Isn't that what Thatcher was offering? How is this
>anti-welfarist feeling (which you seem to share) to be distinguished from
>Thatcherism?
Well, tragically, it wasn't sufficiently differentiated in the minds of the public, and a considerable part of the working class voted for cuts and privatisation. People in work felt little identification with welfare claimants, and even fewer felt any identification with nationalised industries. Most pointedly the Steel-workers just took the redundancy payments and went.
Whether it could have been differentiated depended on the ability of the left to break from its identification with the Labour Party and with state socialism. Some of us tried, but we were a minority of a minority. -- Jim heartfield