Many of those who lost jobs in inefficient (and previously state-subsidized) industries like steel, coal-mining, textiles and shipbuilding would never find work again, becoming lifelong dependents of the state in all but name. If their former employers went on in some cases (steel, notably) to become profitable private companies it was less through the miracle of private ownership than because Margaret Thatcher’s governments had relieved them of high fixed labour costs, ‘socializing’ the expense of superfluous workers in the form of state-subsidized unemployment.
