Thatcher at 80--what's her legacy?

Someone asked me the other day--‘Can you tell me specifically what Thatcher did to change the UK for the worse’.
Hummm... If ever there was a ‘don’t get me started’—there’s one. I suppose a bit of history is in order to put things in perspective. In 1971, the then Conservative administration led by Edward Heath implemented the first major change to the monetary system since the demise of the sovereign and guinea. They replaced the old system of 240 pence to the pound with a decimal system of 100 new pence to the pound, ostensibly to prepare the way for European monetary integration. So one new penny (1p) was equivalent to 2.4 old pence (2.4d). Opportunistic price gouging by cavalier retailers (e,g. where something had been 3d before it became 3p) took place. This led to the greatest post-war increase in the retail price index and soon the land was awash with cost-of-living-index-related strikes as the trade unions fought to maintain the purchasing power of their memberships. No sooner had they won an increase than the cost would be passed on as a price increase. In late spring of 1979 after the infamous ‘winter of discontent’, Mrs Thatcher was elected Prime Minister and took office claiming she would cure inflation ‘at a stroke’ and quoting St Francis of Assisi to ‘bring harmony where there is discord’ amongst other platitudes.
She and her cabinet set about this in the following way; a series of interest rate increases had the cost of capital at 15% by late 1980 which had the effect of discouraging borrowing and the inflation rate duly ceased its upward spiral. Corporate bankruptcies hit record levels and the unemployment rate began an inexorable climb, towards nearly 4 million by the mid-eighties. At the same time they abandoned the system of fixed exchange rates and allowed the pound sterling to float on the international markets. The high interest rate brought capital flocking to the City and the exchange rate rocketed--making exports unsellable and causing more layoffs and corporate misery. Speculators and arbitrageurs had a marvellous time, but in terms of making anything useful and adding value, the economy was no more.
Bringing ‘harmony where there is discord’ was a euphemism for taming the trade unions. However, they started by taking on the easy meat-- dismantling wages councils and the like in industries not represented by mainstream union power. Without any ‘voice’ the people in these industries soon slipped to the very bottom of the pile and a new underclass came in to being of people earning one pound-fifty (about two dollars US) or even less per hour--if they had work at all. This underclass numbered about 5-6 million at the height of her Reign of Terror and was an essential part of the plan, because the propaganda machine made it clear that it was their own fecklessness which had brought on their plight. It was not till 1997 when one of New Labour’s first acts was to introduce a minimum wage of three pounds seventy-five an hour that anything was done about this exploitation. A lot of people committed suicide out of despair before then.
The major unions were brought to heel by dismantling and closing down major state-owned industries like coal, ship-building and steel. This had the effect of turning large swathes of the North and Scotland into virtual ghost towns, where whole generations have never known productive employment since. Her answer to this became known as TINA (There is No Alternative) and produced the infamous comment from her deputy Norman Tebbit -- ‘Get on your bike and look for work’. The people who were able to do this flocked to the South where conditions were not nearly so serious and in doing so increased the demand for housing (and its cost) to still higher levels.
To allow people to become ‘little capitalists’ she introduced the system of selling off public housing at knock-down prices to tenants of two years or more. No more public housing was built under her. This made a lot of people a one-off quick buck, but the upshot has been a major housing shortage 20 years later and the highest real estate prices in Europe. Fine if you work on percentages as estate agents do, but not much fun if you are a first-time buyer unable to afford even the deposit on a shed. New Labour have not done anything about this at all.
Other state-owned industries were sold off at knock-down prices--most notably the railways (though she only laid the foundations for this by starving the industry of investment to make it a more appetizing prospect). She refused to travel by rail herself, praising the ‘Great Car Economy’ at every opportunity. Many a quick buck was made and invested offshore in tax havens. Public Bad--Private Good was the motto.
The privatized railways were run with shareholder interests foremost. To reduce costs and augment profit maintenance schedules were cut to the bone with the result that there have been a number of major train wrecks since the late 90’s, with numerous fatalities. The train service is the worst in Europe and a major laughing stock. It is now in limbo--its ‘owners’ prevented from operating it and New Labour seemingly at a loss what to do. Trains still run, after a fashion.

This is getting too long so I’ll switch tack. With her uncaring attitude, Thatcher unwittingly created a culture of ‘me first--sod everyone else’. The most noble pursuit became self-enrichment and the accumulation of material goods. The only criterion which justified any activity was if it made money. If it didn’t it was closed down--which is why many major towns don’t have a sports centre/swimming pool any more and acres of school playing fields were sold off to property developers.

To sum up:
Whilst implementing overdue union reform, she threw the poor in the country to the wolves, unleashed an era of greed epitomised by former ministers ending up on the boards of utilities they helped privatise, broke records for unemployment, doubled VAT, destroyed the coal-mining towns and brought in the poll tax. The only time she cried in public was the day she finally left number 10 Downing Street. Her true legacy is the Tories are still unelectable today. But it doesn’t make much difference--New Labour stole all her best ideas.

This is still incomplete--but I hope you get my general drift. Some things she did needed doing--sure--but it was the need to do them ‘at a stroke’ and the callous disregard for the consequences which make her a bete noir for millions (and a heroine for many others). Go figure...