1979 - "There were a fair number of strikes, not excessively so" - MGOH - the truth:

1: "22 January 1979 was the biggest individual day of strike action since the General Strike of 1926, and many workers stayed out indefinitely afterwards"

2: With the succession of strikes having been called and then won, many groups of workers began to take unofficial action – often without the consent or support of the union leaderships. Ambulance drivers began to take strike action in mid-January, and in parts of the country (London, West Midlands, Cardiff, Glasgow and the west of Scotland) their action included refusing to attend 999 emergency calls. In these areas, the Army was drafted in to provide a skeleton service. Ancillary hospital staff also went on strike. On 30 January, the Secretary of State for Social Services David Ennals announced that 1,100 of 2,300 NHS hospitals were only treating emergencies, that practically no ambulance service was operating normally, and that the ancillary health service workers were deciding which cases merited treatment. The media reported with scorn that cancer patients were being prevented from getting essential treatment.

Sorry Kevin, what services did you say were better?

3: In total in 1979, 29,474,000 working days were lost in industrial disputes, compared with 9,306,000 in 1978.

Hyped up Kevin?

As for Thatcher? - By 1983 changes made to trade union laws (most notably the regulation that unions had to hold a ballot among members before calling strikes) resulted in the number of strikes in the UK falling to their lowest level for 30 years. The General Election called in 1983 the Tories won by a landslide - wonder why Kevin, if things had been so peachy under Labour before?