Were you there?
I wonder how many of the posters here actually were adults in Thatcher years...
I was and I remember just how crap things were in the 70s prior to her coming in. Let's start with some home truths:
Car industry was on its knees - destroyed by over-unionised workforce, rolling strikes and dreadful product. Reason it died was lack of competition against the German/Japanese imports. Our luxury cars weren't and normal cars were unreliable, lacking features and not using latest technology. Blaming Thatcher for this is a bit rich as it was in its death throes anyway.
Mining and steel industry - quite simply we could not produce at a good enough price - like tin mining before it (which we used to lead the world in) and clothing, other countries entered the market with a lower cost base (cheap labour, etc).
Other manufacturing, I remember in the 70s everything was "made in Hong Kong", again cheap labour. they, like us moved on into higher value business (when was the last time you saw anything labelled "made in Hong Kong"?) China is currently filling that void, next it will be India and Brazil - just natural progression. No point in us trying to compete.
British Rail was a laughing stock, bloated, inefficient, strikes, lack of investment. Whilst I don't like the rail prices at least when I travel now its on a modern, fast air-conditioned train that generally runs on time.
And the list goes on.
Thatcher was a catalyst, like it or not this was going to happen anyway. If she was guilty of one thing it was not providing the support for the people - the sudden crash plunged many areas into deep depression. But then I'm not sure what could have been done anyway.
I also laughed to see someone blaming Thatcher for Blair coming in. Hilarious.
And if there was one person who is more responsible for screwing this country over, it was him:
Got us involved in expensive and pointless wars
Spent like there was no tomorrow
Encouraged a dependency culture
Failed to control bankers
Almost sunk us into the Euro...
Wasted billions on vanity projects (Millennium Dome....etc)