You had to be there to grasp the scale of Margaret Thatcher's revolution

[snaw]

It's all about your perspective.

Sure if I'd lived and worked in SE England somewhere, and my standard of living went up and I got to buy my house etc then it seemed great. Equally growing up in a mining village in Scotland (Or any other area in the UK devasted by her policies) she destroyed the community I grew up in and left a legacy of crime, chronic unemployment and rampant drug abuse.

Take yer pick. Nothing is ever black and white.

[TimberWolf]

I think there's a massive grey area here - she was a Hero, and also a Villian. And anyone who thinks she wasn't, doesn't quite understand either side.

She effected my family hugely for the better - you could argue that she made us who we are today.
She effected my husbands family hugely for the worse - and that bitterness still lasts today.

this should be a multiple choice poll

[zeitghost]

I well remember the relief in May 1979 as Old Liebour got booted out...

Little did we know what was in front of us...

The decimation of what remained of British Industry.

A government too thick to appreciate what scrapping our single ship in the South Atlantic would indicate to the Argies...

Not forgetting a rate of inflation even higher than Sunny Jim & dear old 'Arold Wilson had achieved in the 70s.

Stunning.

As someone once said, she was amazingly lucky in her choice of enemies: to whit, A bunch of Latin American Meat Packing Glitterati, and Arfur Scargill.


Sorted.

[snaw]

Aside from a Zebra Crossing.

Black and white or just different shades of grey?

[Pogle]

Elvis Costello - summed it up for me when he wrote "Tramp the dirt down"

[NotAllThere]

Villain and Hero. A lady ahead of her time.

[sasguru]

The Thatcher revolution, if it was that, was a temporary blip.
From the perspective of a few years we can see that it is her legacy that led to the state we are in today.
The mantra of "free market good" was created by her, New Labour were too scared to challenge it, and look where we are now.
While the stupid and short-sighted unions needed to be crushed, it was stupid to throw the baby out with the bathwater and destroy manufacturing wholesale as she did.

Recent events have shown that the Thatcherite ideas of liberal/free financial markets and service industries sufficing as the engine of the economy were drastically wrong.

Now that we are basically the banana republic economy of Europe, it's time for some fresh thinking - idolising a deeply flawed, yet courageous and brilliant woman of the past is not the way forward.

[Menelaus]

Mrs T had the audacity to change the economic landscape in the country and for that we should be grateful. It strikes me that NuLab have cocked up by interfering in capitalism - for example, capitalism suggests that RBS, Northern Rock, HBoS, B&B and A&L should have been allowed to fail rather than being propped up by the government.

[TimberWolf]

Trouble is there was nothing to follow up after Thatcherism and we are now left with ex publicly owned companies owned shareholders who have no long term interest in the UK or the companies they have become rich from. We also squandered our oil without putting anything into place for when it ran out, which it has done faster than any oil reserves anywhere.

[AlfredJPruffock]

Mrs T had the audacity to change the economic landscape in the country and for that we should be grateful. It strikes me that NuLab have cocked up by interfering in capitalism - for example, capitalism suggests that RBS, Northern Rock, HBoS, B&B and A&L should have been allowed to fail rather than being propped up by the government.

Am I correct in thinking you dont have an account with any of the above ?

Given society needs Banks to function - the Wall St led self-destruction of the Shadow Banking system led to the nationalisation of the Banking Sector in the US and the UK means the rebuttal of the free-market philosophy - in its place we now have , in effect , a socialist based banking system with a private sector albeit an increasingly regulated one,