THATCHER said there was no such thing as society, and 40 years on we live in a country gutted by that conceit.

The system failures we see across the public realm effectively withdraw social provision, forcing individuals and families (the two human units whose existence she did acknowledge) onto their own resources.

That might mean driving a car because there isn’t a reliable bus service, or taking out private insurance because the NHS can’t guarantee prompt treatment (private hospital capacity in London has risen 40 per cent since 2017, reflecting surging demand).

Conservative ideologues see no problem in this, arguing that collective provision creates dependency. But besides the huge structural inequalities that affect people’s ability to do so, this is contradictory when Thatcherism has forced a steady decline in wages as a share of GDP over four decades — with two-thirds of children in poverty coming from working households, the idea that you can work your way up looks ever more threadbare.

Aside from that, scaling back “society” on the grounds that social provision means spending “someone else’s money” (another Thatcher quip) ignores the interdependence of collective and individual rights. When there is “no such thing as society,” individuals are less free.

Growing alarm from women’s organisations about the loss of street lighting is a case in point. Most councils have decided to cut street lighting over the past 15 years because of huge cuts to their central government grants.

The removal of well-lit public spaces is set to accelerate, with the cumulative effect of cuts on councils meaning an increasing number have declared bankruptcy and others are announcing sweeping cuts to avoid doing so.

Various environmental groups argue reduced street lighting can be positive since light pollution disrupts wildlife. 

But decisions to reduce lighting in some areas, taken on environmental grounds, is not what we face here. We face cost-driven cuts to street lighting because councils are broke.

The impact on people’s safety, especially women’s, could be drastic. A University of Sheffield study found a 36 per cent reduction in crime in well-lit areas, and a 38 per cent reduction in rape crime specifically.

Darker streets are less safe and surveys show most women will avoid going through them if possible. This amounts to a direct attack on women’s right to go about in safety, something that can ultimately only be guaranteed collectively.

London’s Havering Borough Council’s threatened street lighting cuts prompted accusations from anti-sexual harassment campaign Our Streets Now that it treats women’s safety as an afterthought.

Arguably it does, but councils are being forced to slash costs to the bone everywhere. Havering is also looking to cut spending on libraries and children’s centres, as are scores of local authorities.

We need a new approach, where instead of insisting councils cut their cloth to suit their purses we identify the services we need and raise the money required to pay for them.

To do so fairly means replacing regressive council tax with land, wealth and profit taxes that fall more heavily on those who can afford them.

And the rich can afford them. Last week’s record-breaking profit announcements from Lloyd’s and HSBC underline, once again, that Britain’s “economic crisis” is in fact a class war in which the rich are squeezing us dry.

The giant banks’ profits directly stem from the Bank of England’s high interest rates which have hammered ordinary people through rising mortgages and rents.

Even councils’ street lighting dilemma is caused not just by funding cuts, but by the soaring price of energy driven by corporate profiteering.

An economy geared only to maximise capitalist profit is crippling our society’s ability to provide a “social wage” through proper healthcare, education, transport and clean, safe streets.

The localised campaigns which will spring up against one council cut or another should be co-ordinated into a nationwide movement for a political alternative.