Ah, I can perhaps disagree with both Backwoodsman and Big Al on a couple of technicalities?

Al, riots go back as far as you like. "I'm alright Jack" predates the Th*tcher philosophy too. The timing was there for this to be seen more, but so was the advent of more reporting, more TV coverage of events, more TV channels looking to compete with The Daily Shitscarer. I will be the first to accept that the drugs scene started getting worse in the '80s, and reached pandemic proportions here about ten years after it reached that state in The USA, and about five years before it reached Germany, France etc in the same proportions. We just got to know more about it as time went on. Hence the Catholic priest scandals; always been there, only recently getting front page cover.

I'm not sure giving Th*tcher credit for changing society, good or bad, is something I would be comfortable with. Anyway, if you were to say the Keith Joseph / Nicholas Ridley philosophy, then yes, they, through their puppet exacerbated the situation but I suspect the ability to see how the rest of the world spins helped. We are not the only country with issues, and don't forget, most Scandinavian countries, with similar issues to us kept socialist governments throughout the term of her office.

What was the other thing?... Oh, that's it. Backwoodsman = come on, "they don't deal any more when the stretch they're given is a neck stretch" ???    If you look at the less civilised countries such as China, USA, Singapore and Iran, you find that drug dealers exist, yet capital punishment is on the statute books... (Also, working without a licence being a capital crime? If we were awful enough to bring it back, I would expect it to be reserved for actions you shouldn't do rather than only do with a piece of paper from a regulator.)

People don't break the law because they weigh up the consequences, they break the law because they think they can get away with it, (or, to keep Bridge quiet) because they are desperate enough.