This social construction of the normal citizen produced types of "included" people who were the "subjects" imagined by the Beveridgean welfare state. Compared with this norm, others such as women, black people, disabled people and immigrants were marginalised from full UK citizenship, but conditionally included as inferior or dependent welfare subjects (Williams 1989, 1991, 1996, quoted in Hughes, 1998).
The post-war welfare settlements were reconstructed throughout the 1980s and 1990s as a result of the erosion of the social democratic consensus and the seizure of power by the New Right launched by the Conservatives, under Mrs Thatcher. The New Right's social construction of the welfare state was that it caused dependency, it was too costly and the provision of universal benefits was paternalistic. The New Right believed in the free market and emphasised that the state should have a limited role in the workings of the economy. The New Right undermined the post-war social democratic political consensus by mobilising popular resentment to union power, state bureaucracy and professional power. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s a series of employment acts were introduced to curb the power of trade unions. In the 1980s fifty pieces of legislation aimed at curtailing powers and responsibilities of local authorities were passed (Wilding, 1992, quoted in Lewis, 1998). These measures were aimed at strengthening the power of central government to form and implement policy. This reforming of the balance of political power led to the deconstruction of the post-war political settlement. .
The post-war political and economic settlements were reconstructed during the 1980s and 1990s when the Thatcher Government introduced market mechanisms and the ideology of managerialism into welfare provision to limit state intervention and subsidy. The role of the state was changed from provider to purchaser of services and the amount of private and voluntary welfare provision was increased.