Pile em high sell em cheap.

To understand the decline we of a certain age have seen in the 'institution that is Britain' one has to go back to the changes which emerged from the "great social contract" enacted by the Attlee government of 1946 with its commitment to a welfare state and the support of all shades of the electorate not just one privileged.  Keynesian economics which radically admitted the inherent responsibility of 'government' to play a hand in the social construct of the state, was sidelined and eventually dismembered by the Thatcherite, Milton Friedman, laissez faire market solution which, along the American lines, abhorred the role government played in the minutia of the social contract. There was to be no "social contract" and with the direct attack on organised labour, the removal of municipal services  from the remit of elected councils, to be run in future by Quangos plus the selling off of a large part of the housing stock at well below replacement value, the scene was set for a vast increase in the culture of benefit dependency.
It is no accident that the rise in divorce and unmarried motherhood went in tandem with the virtual wiping out of surety in the job market as market conditions drove down wages and, except for a few companies, returned work to its pre war position of insecurity and impoverishment for whole swathes of society.
To this day the hard won rights of a fair wage for a fair days pay are emasculated in the zero hour contracts and the below adequate living standard pay, requiring a welfare top up from taxation which nicely relieves the employer of his duty to pay adequately and responsibly.
One often asks, how did we come to this when after the war when we were financially broke, we were able to launch the NHS and the various welfare capture points to help families who through no fault of their own were in need of assistance.
When and how did it change. When old people's homes were adequately staffed not by people from overseas willing to work all hours godsend for a pittance. The local workforce staffed the caring roles in our society and the homes were free to the elderly using them. Young people today have no concept of free university education which was available in my day.
From the Prisons to our Schools the assumption was that it was the States business, paid for out of general taxation but with the understanding that a minister in parliament was responsible and your MP could ask questions.
All this has been sidelined, eradicated by Margaret Thatcher in her ideological zeal to emulate the Americans and in particular Ronald Reagan who she was in awe of. We have firewalls all over the place insulating our democratically elected representatives, the only people we can call to account, from the services which make us civilised.
Quangos and privatisation, self interested bodies who have a financial interest, and operate on the basis of Tesco's founder, "pile em high and sell em cheap". Our flirtation with social justice is no more and we are all the poorer for it.