ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses whether the prevailing attitudes and outlook in Britain’s compatible with the principles and policies of the welfare state. The welfare state was born in an era of moral shock and remorse caused by the revelation of the appalling conditions among the poor shown to exist by Charles Booth's great inquiry into the Life and Labour of the People of London, and other investigations. A sense of compassion combined with the pangs of conscience led to a middle- and upper-class revolt against a state of affairs which had become intolerable. The term welfare state offers no guide to the proper limits of individual freedom or governmental action. The principal watchword which is invoked to justify welfare policies is equality. It has to serve for validating proposals or decisions in the fields of education, health, housing, taxation, the position of women in society and much else. To advocate equality has become the conventional wisdom of the Left.
