Thatcherism liberated the British economically and, despite ten years of Blair and Brown, they still pay less tax than most of their Continental neighbors. But, lacking any meaningful equivalent to America's social conservatives, values voters, small-government types, Second Amendment gun nuts and other familiar figures of the US scene, Britain has become a land of economic plenty with a welfarist sensibility. The "yobs" who rampage through town shopping centers turn out to be not downtrodden and impoverished but living in suburban cul-de-sacs with two-car garages. This is a very contemporary problem: an underclass that's too rich.