No politician is perfect, but as Tony Benn said you knew where you stood with her. On the point of unemployment, industries like coal were no longer viable, she didn’t waste money trying to subsidise them and although bitter at the time, countries that did try to keep loss making industries going like France & Germany are now paying for it with huge unemployment now.
She stood firm against the IRA and reacted with an incredibly cool head in the Brighton bombings.
She took on Argentina and won.
She revolutionised higher education.
Her government turned around an uncompetitive, union-dominated economy into a powerhouse that set a lot of precedents for the world to follow.
She inspired (some of) a generation to believe that hard work pays off.
She was a genuinely well respected leader the World over.
Do people not understand that the coal industry was NO LONGER VIABLE? Why prop it up?
+1.
Standing up to the unions was probably most important thing she did. The strikes and effect on output convinced Thatcher the problem was supply side – she moved away from demand management economics, focusing on monetarism and supply side reform .
Whatever you think look at our GDP growth from 79′ to now and compare to other countries. Thatcher laid most of the ground work for that.