Coming back to the earlier point about Thatcher being an aberration in the conservative lineage - perhaps, but it doesn't really matter if the present Tory government (coalition, whatever) is so rabidly in awe of Thatcher and persisting with her project of impoverishing the vulnerable and of destroying any collective organisation that might threaten this project (Cameron's bleatings about the unions this week could have come straight from t he 80s).
Maybe (at least in the US and UK) what it means to be a 'conservative' has shifted permanently, rather than Thatcher being an aberration? The worrying thing is, the voters seem to have gone with it, which kinda inspired what I was saying about lack of empathy and fear, and the connections between the two (certainly many people are dissuaded from becoming politically active 'cos of economic fear; however, there is also a tipping point, where enough people feel they have nothing to lose any more, and it will be interesting to see when this is reached in the UK, if ever....).