Thatcher And The Welfare State

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ABSTRACT “Welfare policy successfully weathered an economic hurricane in the mid 1970’s and an ideological blizzard in the 1980’s” (Le Grand, 1990, p350). A statement suggesting that the welfare state in Great Britain had survived a crisis period in history. In the early 20th century it was highlighted in regards to the amount of poverty that men were suffering. Reforms after WWII were implemented and with Keynesian Economics there was an effort to improve the living conditions of the British people as well as the economy. This policy found itself in trouble on a few occasions but during the 1970’s there was a worldwide crisis and Britain asked the IMF for a large loan. This loan had conditions which the Conservative Government had an obligation to follow. Margaret Thatcher then began to implement policies to reduce welfare spending which did reduce it in one area but had consequences in another. The welfare state has survived this time but in many areas has been changed and/or reduced in size. “Welfare policy successfully weathered an economic hurricane in the mid 1970’s and an ideological blizzard in the 1980’s” (Le Grand, 1990, p350) The above quote was in reference to the robustness of the British Welfare state according to Julian Le Grand (in Barr et al, 1990, p350). During the 1970’s Britain faced one of its worst economic crisis; in which he says that the welfare state in Britain had survived even though there was little money to do so. During the 1980’s there were welfare reforms imposed by Margaret Thatcher and her conservative government which was seen as the end of the welfare state by the selling of many Government run industries as part of a way to extend the private market space (Frogget, 2002, p80). The question is though, has the welfare state really survived this hectic period in history? If so, did it do this by learning from the mistakes
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