A lot can change in 30 years, including Margaret Thatcher's assertion that there is "no such thing as society" being replaced by David Cameron's promotion of 'big society'. But scratch the surface of prime ministerial statement and slogan and what we find is a rebranding and relabeling, yet open the can and the contents look remarkably similar. Essentially it is empty.
But the rebranding is clever. We have moved from matronly Thatcher to matey Cameron, and from a prime minister who was seen as cold, sharp, hard and steely to one who is warmer, softer and more cuddly. Yet the antecedents of current policy are similar, the rationale given is the same, and the consequences are likely to be replicated.
In the late 1970s the new Thatcher-led Conservative government had to respond to an economic crisis. Its roots were partly from years before when the oil producing countries hiked up their prices and when the International Monetary Fund drove a bargain which demanded big cuts in public expenditure. The monetarists were let loose and gave an intellectual foundation for a new rampant right-wing politics. Now take 2011.
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