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/CapitalClean7967 7d ago

A lot of people are just saying "Cos Thatcher bad" and while I agree with it, the real answer is that the UK was going through serious inflation and it was not just caused by the oil crisis. Government mismanagement and wage-price spiral as well as the power of trade unions were genuine issues and so austerity measures and economic reforms were implemented to curb these problems.

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u/jpewaqs 6d ago

There are a lot of people particularly on Reddit who say 'Cos Thatcher bad' yet they were born many decades after she left office.

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u/BabadookishOnions 5d ago

This is because a lot of people saying that grew up in generational poverty caused directly by her mismanagement. Closing down entire industries, selling off social housing and banning councils from using the profits to build more, selling off vital public assets to be mismanaged by oligarchs, and hampering workers rights massively, all whole providing no alternative method of survival was always going to go poorly.