There are several legacies of the Thatcher era which were unforeseen at the time. One is that the natural consequence of privatisation was foreign ownership of huge areas of the UK's utility sector from water to gas and electricity, an event which – as we witness today – the French would never accept.

Another is that the popular council house sales programme led not only to the drying up of the municipal rented sector, but to a mushrooming of welfare costs through housing benefit, due to lack of affordable social housing.