ABSTRACT
Margaret Thatcher's radicalism encompassed a critical approach to the welfare state. She was sure that 'welfarism' spawned a dependency culture while militating against risk and economic achievement. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the professional ethic should be prominently in her sights. Thatcher's policies on the National Health Service (NHS) were dictated by political realities. The NHS was a 'Labour issue'; Conservative 'meddling' would attract scepticism at best, but more likely hostility. So Thatcher declined to follow the logic of her right-wing advisers on either privatisation or the expansion of private insurance. Thatcher's view about education policy was straightforward. Thatcher's preferred solutions encompassed the usual incompatible objectives of greater central controls on distrusted professionals, increased financial accountability, wider 'consumer' choice in a quasi-free educational market and elements of privatisation. The Thatcher years shifted the emphasis towards 'community-based' approaches to crime and crime prevention.
