Who Remembers Selsdon Man?

The philosopher John Gray has an interesting angle on the Osborne cuts in the Guardian.

As well as pointing out that, for all her ferocious rhetoric, Margaret Thatcher did not achieve long-term cuts in public spending or, except temporarily,  reduce the Welfare State, he detects a more ruthess ambition in Dave'n'George.

In an interesting aside he compares their attitude to that of early the Edward Heath administration. Most people have forgotten that the early Heath was a cutter and slasher (at least in theory) and  a follower of the Selsdon Group. Heath's pre-Thatcher "Thatcherism" failed, his Premiership faltered on the first big miners strike and he is now no more than a footnote in recent history.

Mrs Thatcher herself did not dismantle the welfare State but now her acolytes from the Bullingdon Club are set to make another serious attempt to threaten the social glue that holds the UK together.