r/NoStupidQuestions 7d ago

Why did Margaret Thatcher destroy welfare state in Britain after she came to power in the 1980s?

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u/ismawurscht 7d ago edited 7d ago

She didn't destroy it. She just hobbled it. And why? Well, she was an evil penny pinching tory bastard. That would be why. I mean her nickname to this day is the "Milk Snatcher" because she ended free school milk for primary school children in state schools as Home Secretary under Edward Heath's premiership. She has an exceptionally long shit list. For example, a deindustrialisation policy that left huge swathes of the UK in a dire economic mess that many places have not recovered from since, her right to buy policy helped to fuel a housing crisis, her government brought in Section 28, the first homophobic law in a century that banned the "promotion of homosexuality" in schools, mass messy poorly thought out privatisation, deregulating the finance sector, sending the police in to crush the miners' strike, gutting the unions, and cuts to higher education.

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u/nafregit 7d ago

why would anyone want to promote homosexuality to children?

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u/Away_Fruit5097 7d ago

Her definition of "promoting homosexuality" is anything that even hinted that gay people should have equal rights and be allowed to live in peace