What never seems to be discussed is what the country would have been like if she hadn't come to power. Mining and other heavy industries had been in decline for decades (Harold Wilson's Labour government closed more pits than Thatcher) and had to be supported by unsustainable public subsidies because they were uneconomic. British manufacturing, and especially the car industry, were a joke.

The unions may have looked after their own members' interests but made it difficult to get a job if you weren't in the right union, and difficult to do it properly if you were - many of the strikes were demarcation disputes between unions because someone from one union had picked up apanner which only someone from a different union was allowed to use.

Margaret Thatcher saw that drastic action was needed and had the clarity of vision and determination to do it. One of her mistakes was to rely too much on the market to pick up the pieces - in regions where the entire economic base had collapsed this was never going to happen. However regeneration did take place, but was perhaps too little too late.

However if she had not taken firm action to restructure the economy the liklihood is that the decline would have continued, with much the same results for those areas dependent on mining, steel or other uneconomic industries. The difference is that the more successful areas of the economy might never have flourished.