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Originally Posted by towny
Margaret Thatcher seems to stir strong emotions one way or the other. She was either the greatest of all post-War PMs, or the bitch queen of hell bent on wrecking Britain. Sadly, I rarely hear anyone, whether expressing a positive or negative opinion of her, give any of the reasoning behind their point of view.
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I'm a bit young to remember what it was like living with Thatcher (i'm 23, I was 9 when she left office), so I can only go by what i've seen, read, and heard. I look back at the whole "Winter Of Discontent", and how severely messed up the country was (I'm so thankful I was born a couple of years after), so in my mind she was a good leader to pull ourselves out of that mess. She introduced poll tax, which didn't go down too well, but I doubt that makes her that much of a tyrant. I asked a bloke I work with: "What exactly did she do at the end which was so bad", and he did explain it to me, but for some reason it completely escapes me. But I might ask him again tomorrow, as I would like to know again.
I think that it is a very fine line between being a very powerful resolute leader, and a needless domineering old battleaxe. I'm guessing she started off the former and ended up the latter, which didn't help. In my mind anyone in a position of such much power, like the PM must be a strong, resolute person. On that basis, I think we have had worse haven't we?