SIR - Margaret Thatcher had a naïve faith in the city whiz kids of the 1980s, believing that if she freed them financially via deregulation, they would turn into Victorian style philanthropists. This misjudgement had terrible financial repercussions for the lower economic rungs of British society, but why care when she denied the existence of society.
There were estimates during the Eighties that between the bottom quarter to a third of society endured a reduction in living standards during this time but it was believed that this was an acceptable price to pay to help the top tiers of wealth as ‘wealth trickles down’.
This connects to the original assumption regarding the city whiz kids never morphing into the Victorian philanthropists of the past. The protestant Christian work ethic that motivated the industrious philanthropists of yesteryear unfortunately was no longer the cultural norm by the late 20th century, thus Mrs T’s wiz kids were more likely to spend their wealth on champagne and cocaine rather than create the modern day equivalent of industrial model villages with hospitals and homes for workers. Because of such a political and cultural misjudgement, wealth never trickled down.
George Hitchcock, Southlands, Baildon
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