I have only just started to calm down and hope I can be more rational about this person.
Lets get one or two details out of the way first.
MT was not the architect of her policies though she attempts to take the credit.She did modify things as time drew on and ultimately it was her self belief in her own righteousness and infallability that did for her.
The background to her policies actually lie in reports from the right-wing political theorist think tank called the Adam Smith Institute whose whole reason d’etre was the freeing up of markets by minimising the role of the state.
The origins of this philosophy came about during the reign of George III when free trade was almost unheard of, and led to a moribund economy, where to make money one had to belong to a certain self-interested group, which basically bribed legislators, rulers, and the tiny number of voters in order to make conditions more favourable to themselves.
This meant that true entrepreneurs were stifled.
I suppose the diametricly opposite group to the Adam Smith institue would be the Joseph Rowntree foundation which is particularly noted for its philanthropy, so if you wish to research both sides of this debate you will need to inform yourself on both viewpoints(isn’t the net just wonderful?)
The Adam Smith Institute came out with a report in the early '70’s which baldly stated that the then employment levels in the UK were too high and that this led to a shortage of labour at a reasonable price, which in turn made British industry less competitive.
Building on the whole of that report, economic theorists came up with a checklist of things to do to rectify and reform the British economy.
Chief among these was Sir Keith Joseph and to whom MT has acknowledged many times that she owes a great debt.
Why was the British economy in a stagnant state ?
Our inflation was high at the time, I remember annual rates above 10% and of course this led to increased wage demands, and to control it all interest rates were high which led in turn to higher wage demands.
For those not all that familiar with UK economics one should realise that as a nation we are obsessed with real estate, which means interest rates have an intimate effect on our daily lives, any changes to interest rates means that it affects what we have to spend quite dramatically and any reduction in disposible income means that home improvements, furniture sales etc are reduced, which then leads to unemployment.
Conservatives always blame the Labour party government of the day for this situation but in fact the '70’s demonstrated how impotent national governments actually were in the face of changing world market conditions.
It would not have mattered who was in power at the time of that last Labour government, our economy would have been in very poor condition, and ** the ** main reason for this were the sudden hikes in oil prices, not once but twice in a matter of a few of years.
These oil price rises hit the UK very hard, as an exporter of manufactured goods, our markets simply dried up and the cost of imports such as raw materials rose, oil production in the North Sea was still merely a dream.
The result was industrial unrest and an increase in our unemployment, our unions with their frankly undemocratic methods made things even worse.
Whenever such a situation arises people will vote for a leader who promises instant solutions, and MT did just that, but instant solutions and short term feel goodism always comes at a cost.
I shall stop here so that you can comment, this is only an introduction about the MT led government and to carry on would lead to a long and extremely dry post.
I will say that I actually truly believe that the miners union did have to be broken, they were without question a threat to our democracy by causing economic damge that led to the ousting of two governments and emergancy elections pluse HM QEII declaring a state of emergency and idssolving parliament before its term was completed.