Margaret Thatcher

I thought I had better get my two "pen'orth" in as everyone else appears to be so doing. I lived through that period and was engaged in many struggles against her policies. This is not however going to be a rant - I hope it will be a more balanced assessment. MT obviously believed in the power of markets - we now know that, simply applied, this belief is dangerous leading to corruption and enormous inequalities occasioning social breakdown. On the other hand markets do offer the possibility of economic growth and wealth creation. MT shew that it need not be inevitable that the future for Great Britain (in the last decades of the 20th century) would be managing decline. The "big idea" was implemented - freeing up capital markets, floating currency rate, liberalisation of markets and de-regulation. As is so often the case the full implications of such policies had not been properly gauged - if ever that is possible. Consequences in Great Britain were the destruction of manufacturing industries and the elimination of some basic industries (Coal and Steel). With that a new moneyed class was created that traded money or its derivatives while those displaced by these changes were thrown out of work and progressively pauperised. Apologists for MT will say this was not foreseen nor intended but sometimes it is better in politics to own up and say (at least) we should have done better. We are still living with these consequences today. No work contributing to family breakdown and welfare dependency. The destruction of work communities leading to the disappearance of geographical communities with resultant increased crime and misanthropy. "There is no such thing as society" means it's every person for themselves and less concern for the consequences (see City Traders for example).    
Maybe the country needed that kind of shock. Certainly we have witnessed the end of the dream of state socialism so the task for progressives is to marry economic prosperity, a place in the nations of the world and societal strength at home rather than the destructive militant individualism that was the central tenet of MT's beliefs and programme.