I don't wallow in nostalgia Margaret. Advances in medicine and technology obviously make comparison with previous periods not so relevant. My point was merely that the welfare state and public belief that the government owes them a house is in historic terms a new concept.
Historically people had family or nothing. Now it's family and state. This topic was started by the woman who killed herself because the government had given her a house that was too big, and wasn't giving her enough to live in it. Tragic yes, but probably not a situation that would happen in many other countries.
No one at all wanted to even talk about the 50% rise in the welfare bill since 2004, or where the extra £10 billion a year can come from. Not a single person said I think the money should be raised from this or that....... What we did see was the usual howls of greedy Tories, nasty government etc but nothing of actionable practical value.
Govt spending as was is unsustainable. The debt clocks
http://usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html of pretty much everywhere (except china which I note is reducing) are spinning out of control, and unlike historic periods where this happened there is no inflation to erode the value of the debt.