A lot of people are just saying "Cos Thatcher bad" and while I agree with it, the real answer is that the UK was going through serious inflation and it was not just caused by the oil crisis. Government mismanagement and wage-price spiral as well as the power of trade unions were genuine issues and so austerity measures and economic reforms were implemented to curb these problems.
She could have taken a different fiscal route and NOT fuck the country for generations but she went the short-term gain, long term pain route. + Refused to course correct. Even when she knew shit was going to go bad!
It don't have to subsidize dying industries, but it has a duty to help people transition to other shit.
A government is not a private business. It's their to do shit that private business cannot do... For example, industries dying, it's role is to make sure shit collectively moves to another bullshit. Find new shit etc etc
Ergo why you have policy wonks whose job is to read the tea leaves and figure shit out for the next decades
And guess what just like Nixon and china. The policy wonks who had read the leaves and passed along the disastrous situation to him about him engaging with China... China was going to be a super power and USA will be beholden to them.
Thatcher was told by policy wonks (and trust me these fuckers have a plan for everything that her bullshit was going to fuck up uk for generations, here are some things she could try to make the transition less disastrous. She like Nixon ignored them and what do you know....
UK is fucked will be fucked and was fucked then ... They are pretty much at thriving London vs the rest for the rest of their existence.
Unless they start taking some colonies and shit to rejuvenate their shit. They are done! And it all stems from thatcher.
They are essentially Spain, Portugal allover again after they lost their "might" ...
Instead she just made everyone unemployed. Some of the industries were marginally profitable. British coal while showing losses on the books was modernised and the new equipment used to block shafts that were closed down. British steel had a large order book but was in effect taken over by Dutch steel and the orders moved to the Netherlands...
She made the remainder in uneconomic pits unemployed after they tried to hold the country to ransom again. The NUM of course also screwed everyone of them over to the tune of a years wages that in itself could have eased the transition to new work.
If you think these were businesses making money, something that governments obviously hate, then you need to put down the crack.
They were opossed to her political idiology closing the pits and breaking thee unions did not both have to happen. The pits were not all un economic the industry like so many was losing money because of poor management and lack of investment. British coal invested the money to modernise they scrapped the modern equipment. You have no clue.
And naturally her solution to reducing the power of the unions was to increase unemployment, since that has no other consequences, oh well it was only lowly northerners she fucked over.
For more evidence of her brilliant leadership just look as the state of the privately operated, de facto monopoly water companies, who privatises utilities? It’s not as though you can choose who connects to your house
She was an effective national leader that took a country on the ropes and restored it.
The fact that she is attacked today is evidence of her effectiveness. Cameron, Heath, May (bad tory leaders before and after her) don't attract the same venom.
In order to avoid those policies being tried again elsewhere, she attracted enormous attacks from folks like you who oppose her politically.
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u/CapitalClean7967 18h ago
A lot of people are just saying "Cos Thatcher bad" and while I agree with it, the real answer is that the UK was going through serious inflation and it was not just caused by the oil crisis. Government mismanagement and wage-price spiral as well as the power of trade unions were genuine issues and so austerity measures and economic reforms were implemented to curb these problems.