Thatcher did truly exceptional damage to the country - absolute disaster to some parts; extensive damage to the social fabric in all. (In fact, I think that some of the Referendum problem is due to many people blaming the EU for social and economic changes that were really due to Thatcherism plus some global issues.)
Callaghan wasn't perfect; Healey was better but still not perfect, but both were miles better than Thatcher. Even Heath and Macmillan were miles better than Thatcher. Even John Major was IMO miles better than Thatcher, though as his MPs and Ministers were pretty much the same, and he wasn't much of a leader, it didn't make much difference. Indeed, this is one of the crucial issues: whatever the leaders are like, Labour generally has much better MPs and even Ministers than the Tories. Blair was better than Thatcher (yes, really - she was that bad!); perhaps not so much better as an individual than Major - but his MPs and even Ministers were much better than the Tory ones. And so some important policies were better: perhaps not on warmongering, or giving too much power to the banking industry, or keeping Chris Woodhead in charge of the schools inspectorate; but on the minimum wage, and social services spending, and not actively using unemployment as a club, and reduction of homophobia, and several others.
I didn't vote for Blair, by the way.
'If Labour truly can't, at an absolute minimum hold the line on preserving the tiny pathetic remnants of the social wage, what else can it do that is of any value?'
It WILL avoid destroying the social services as much as the Tories would!
I think it's important to remember that if there is a snap election, it may NOT be Cameron who leads the Tories into it, and even if he does, no one expects that he'd be leader for very long. The people who take power if there's a Leave vote are likely to be people very, very much worse than Cameron. Yes, it's quite possible to be even worse than Cameron; and some key Tories are; and their pressures and desire for power largely drove the referendum in the first place.
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