she deliberately set out to destroy the NUM, she paid that wanker McDonald more than it would have cost to settle the dispute in the unions favour.
But if she had caved in, it may have cost less then, but the unions would have come back for more.

As Kipling expressed it:

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.