Ake - as John Harvey Jones said at the time. In her first eighteen months she closed 28% of manufacturing industry - some of those were damn good firms.

You may see it as economic brilliance. I see it as the raving of right wing twat - determined to pay back the miners for the humiliation of the three day week.

Political theory has very little to do with it. I doubt she ever read a book about political theory in her life. As Mike said she was the zeitgeist of the times. the middle classes had always enjoyed certain perks - a slightly better education than the working classes, a pension, home owning. In the 1970's the unions started saying bugger that for a game of soldiers - we want some of that.

Thatcher embodied the resentfullness of the average Daily Mail reader at witnessing this.

Unfortunately the extreme right wing saw they could harness this spirit of malice, xenophobia, homophobia to destroy union power by destroying the industries and trades which employed the union members.