Re: Thatcher
I liked Thatcher when she was in power but I was only a teenager at the time. My parents were staunch Tory voters and my dad would stick the poster up in the window during elections. All I had known was the grey days of 70s austerity and strikes with lack of investment in infrastructure. In the 80s that all changed. Everything started to look new and shiny. Suddenly people had opportunities to make lots of money and buy houses and lots of things that were never even available in shops in the 70s. So for a teen who knew nothing of politics or economics at the time, it all seemed great.
But we are now paying the cost of the short-termist policies Thatcher put into place. The housing boom created the crazy house prices we see today, the NHS was run down over the Thatcher era and she introduced the internal market, causing disparity of systems and culture and the postcode lottery which different governments have been trying to fix (to no avail) ever since. We now pay far more for the NHS than we could ever have imagined and a lot of that is due to the changes Thatcher introduced and labour developed on.
Selling off the nationalised industries has been deemed a success in some areas (telecommunications) but not others (rail). It has certainly increased competition and investment into the sectors privatised. But it's not something we can reverse and was a one-off gain for the Treasury coffers, invigorating the economy greatly at the time.
Thatcher also had a boost from the increase in North Sea oil production which helped power the British economy and get us out of debt in the 80s. North Sea oil and gas are predicted to run out in ten years. The stuff has kept our economy churning despite political ups and downs ever since.
We are looking at a massive economic time bomb in about ten years when our power sources dry up. But our heads are seemingly stuck in the sand worrying about trivialities like Brexit while waiting for a miracle.