Jim Heartfield wrote:
> But the truth is that an entire generation - including myself - had
> grown up hating the labour government for its miserable austerity
> socialism with its stalinoid bureaucracy.
>
> Labour had lost all ability to relate to working class people in 1979,
> and in 1983 it proved it. The manifesto, rightly called the 'longest
> suicide note in history', was a sorry tragedy. It's central plank was a
> call for nationalised industries and welfare spending. The rationale was
> that Labour could manage capitalism better than the Tories, and that if
> we all pulled together, then British industry would get back on its
> feet. They just had no idea how repulsive the welfare state looked to
> most people then. Claimants were persecuted by snoops. Nurses in the NHS
> had their pay squeezed over and over again on the grounds that they were
> a caring profession. Nobody identified with the nationalised industries,
> least of all the people who worked in them. As a programme it was a
> nostalgic hearkening back to the glory days of the 1945 government. But
> the difference was that by 1983 we had all already seen what state
> socialism looked like, and we didn't want it. Labour got its lowest vote
> in the post-war period.
>
>
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?