Still, the old had to be destroyed before the new could take its place. Margaret Thatcher conspired in a ruthless war against the cabinet ‘wets’ and simultaneously plotted to break trade union power - ‘the enemy within’. She impelled people towards new, individualised, competitive solutions: ‘get on your bike’, become self-employed or a share-holder, buy your council house, invest in the property-owning democracy. She coined a homespun equivalent for the key neoliberal ideas behind the sea-change she was imposing on society: value for money, managing your own budget, fiscal restraint, the money supply and the virtues of competition. There was anger, protest, resistance - but also a surge of populist support for the ruthless exercise of strong leadership.

Thatcherism mobilised widespread but unfocused anxiety about social change,
engineering populist calls from ‘below’ to the state ‘above’ to save the country by
imposing social order. [...]