Thatcher

The Customer and the Citizen

10

On the limits of government imitating business

"...The managerial trend within government, that began in the 1980's, during the feverish days of Thatcherism, has gradually spread and infiltrated to every facet of public services. This has become sometimes onerously evident for workers in the public sector with the emphasis on meeting targets. For the broad mass of the population, the trend has perhaps become notable in a subtle even seemingly insignificant way as there has been a change in the way we find ourselves addressed when using public services. We have now, it seems, become the customer..."

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Choosing for oneself

0

The values imparted by tradition, society and family make us what we are.

It seems extraordinary that with the launch of ResPublica, and David Cameron's very public backing, the fightback against the pervasive influence of Thatcher's radical choice-centred liberalism has been mounted from deep within the Tory party. Less extraordinary when one recalls that, for all her Tory fans, Thatcher was always more of a 19th-century liberal.

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