I'd agree with you
Blasty-poo that there was a momentary nip when I heard that she was gone. I remember where I was when I heard that she'd been booted in 1990, and I naively believed that things would change after her departure. Yes, she helped put the population in hock, ran down heavy industry, sold off national assets, and turned Britain into an offshore European manufacturing facility for every company that was prepared to line the tory party coffers.
Then again, she also effectively neutered the unions and stopped them holding the country to ransom every time they were unhappy. Don't get me wrong - I'm a big fan of trades unions and believe that the working man needs to have a say in the way his company is run. But unions in Britain never seemed to cotton on to the idea that their members' interests were best served when they were working, rather than on strike. Consensus was never high on their agenda, and everyone paid the price for it - ultimately the unions bear as much responsibility for the destruction of Britain's industrial base as Thatcher does.
Thatcher was a reaction to the Labour party's inability to hold unions accountable, and the pendulum swung from one extreme to the other. Once it got moving there was no stopping it - it was hang-on and try to get rich, or fall off and drop through the safety net. The tories saw that we were weak and wanted levis and raybans, cheap glitz, jam today and tomorrow, and they dazzled us with their baubles. Who cared that they sold off everything that belonged to us for a fast buck? There were 18-year olds in the City making more money in a year than their parents saw in a lifetime, Golf GTis and black 501s, Duran Duran, Siouxsie, Adam Ant - who could blame us for being dazzled after the years of austerity and disco?
She never did anything we didn't let her do, or in our hearts want her to. Can we really, hand on heart, say that we'd have voted for higher taxes? Less fun? Less freedom? More responsibility? Really? Maybe if we'd seen the price tag of what we wanted then we would have - but at 2 minutes to midnight who cares about the cost? It's not as if we were ever going to have to pay the tab.
And I'm all for fighting for apathy - not sure if I can be bothered dying for it, though