ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the process of unresolved loss leading across the generations to increased infant and childhood attachment difficulties, helped to shape the outlook of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative electorate from 1979–1997, with their programme of radical privatisation and for whom there was no such thing as society. The 1979 general election that brought Margaret Thatcher's government to power, with policies of individualisation and privatisation, the 1945 landslide Labour victory that had ushered in the Welfare State and the National Health Service. The analysis suggests that Margaret Thatcher's policies were successful because, by 1979, the attachment profile of the electorate had fundamentally changed. Mrs Thatcher was re-elected in 1983 and again in 1987. Her Conservative privatising, free-market policies were carried forward by her successor, John Major, until 1997. Policies and rhetoric emphasised self-reliance, nationalised industries were privatised, and long-established mutual societies were turned over to shareholders, as were the utilities such as electricity and water.
