we'll be dancing on Thatcher's grave

[DanaC]

Urbane, Thatcher did not bring the welfare state to an end. We still have unemployment benefit, income support, disability, housing benefit, tax relief and pensions. That is because the British people do not want to end their welfare entitlements. The vast majority of people who claim such assistance do so for short periods of time whilst in difficult circumstances. A small percentage of overall claimants are long term and usually that's because they have severe needs or problems. What people in the UK want is for the system to be fair and accessible and for those who defraud it to be caught and prosecuted. (incidentally, one of our councillors has just been found guilty of benefit fraud.....he's BNP.....he was given 200 hours community service and because there was no custodial sentence he won't even have to stand down as a Councillor.

What she did, was make it very difficult to get any assistance at a time when her policies had created 4 million unemployed. That was unforgivable. The jobs were not there, the new industries had not yet arrived and people had not yet retrained. Whole communities were left in abject poverty. At precisely the time the country most needed succour, she offered instead soundbites about there being 'no such thing as society' and demonised the most vulnerable groups. The Conservative party have spent the intervening years desperately trying to convince the public that they have changed, because it was so unpopular.