She (similar to Reagan in the US) enacted a massive shift in government/society from a more social-democratic focus to a more (economocally) liberal one. Her big goals were to privatize and financialize as much as possible.

This ended up leading to (as it always does) massive increases in inequality, with particularly rural/industrial regions suffering heavily while the services/financial sector in London boomed.

So she is EXTREMELY polarizing. Many conservatives or big-business types worship her, while for many/most others she's seen as the worst thing to happen to the UK.

The big thing she's remembered for is closing down the mining industry. Whole communities throughout the north of England and Wales were left penniless. They were towns where everyone worked as a miner or in some way related to the mine. Nothing was done to give any alternatives.

Of course there was a huge industrial dispute - The miners strike. Massive, initially peaceful, demonstrations that turned violent as police would attack and stir up the conflict. People died, communities were shatteredd, yet through it all Thatcher was unmoving. Just using the police as her own civilian army.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQh4n8rRLw8

She viewed as a uncaring authoritarian tyrant by many.

I think others have pretty much covered her social and economic destruction of the UK, so I'll add "Section 28".

Section 28 - Wiki link

To "protect our children", she introduced the policies to ban any books/songs/art/plays etc from schools which mentioned or suggested homosexuality in any way neutral or positive - obviously this led to an increase in the already fairly popular "gay bashing".

Thankfully nothing like that would happen anywhere now, outside of the few countries Vladimir Putin runs.

In one word? austerity.

But seriously, she probably is not even close to "universally" disliked. Lemmy (or the Internet in-general) is not a representative sampling of the population. For example, a sizable portion of their population voted for Brexit (many of whom now regret it.) You probably wont hear much from them on Lemmy, tho.

To add on what @Higgs [email protected] said, credit to where it's due, the privatisation did help the struggling British economy lift itself out of edging bankruptcy caused by the oil crisis. We have to admit that, sometimes, you need to tighten your belt. But, Thatcher went too far with gutting welfare and unions. Even some respectable conservatives at the time agreed that she went too far.

Thatcher Thatcher milk snatcher

Another one I think should be added is that she presided over the selling off of large amount of council housing (homes owned by local authorities and rented at controlled to people who needed them or for free in the case of some benefit claimants).

The scheme is called Right to Buy and was lauded as a way for everyone to own their own home, as they were sold to the tenants at way below market value.

However, housing stock was not replenished, as local authorities did not get all the money from the sales, and were further restricted from using what they did get to build new housing.

What we've been left with us severely depleted council housing. Where I live and work, we have a huge list of applicants, and only those with the very highest level of need can get a council property, leaving others to pay extortionate private rents or become homeless.

Furthermore, the rules around resale weren't strict enough so you see ex council housing on property websites where people have made tens of thousands in profit on selling them. Many of these are now in the hands of private landlords.

Thatcher the milk snatcher.

It's incredible how she is almost universally hated in the UK.

And your jungle canyon rope-bridges.

Classic video. The old lady is based with staking Thatcher to make sure that she will never come back.

It's difficult to imagine the death of an American politician being met with similar protests.

Not even for Kissinger?

She ruined lives and communities …is doing that that bad?