Few phrases summed up the spirit of Thatcherism, for both its friends and its foes, better than Norman Tebbit's message to the jobless in 1981. When his father was unemployed in the 1930s, said the then industry secretary, "he got on his bike and went out looking for work." As a Labour man, Gordon Brown dismissed the idea that he was following Lord Tebbit's tyre tracks this week. Nevertheless, the comparison is easily made. "We will meet our responsibility to ensure that there are job opportunities and the chance to learn new skills," the chancellor declared. "You must now meet your responsibility—to earn a wage."
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