Ten years ago, Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Britain in the 1980s, who, thanks to her tough anti-communist stance, was one of the most popular politicians among people in Eastern Europe (including the end of the USSR), died. In the UK itself, it has an ambiguous reputation. A year after his dramatic resignation (by decision of his own party), Thatcher’s rule was approved by 52% of Britons, and 48% saw his nearly 11 years in office as a failure. In fact, there were no indifferent people – they loved her or hated her. Hated for sometimes excessive rigidity, not only by opponents, but also by many former supporters – for the simultaneous tendency to compromise and radical solutions. Supporter of the theory of “monetarism”, which proclaimed a blessing in the reduction of taxes and public spending, she resigned, among other things, because of a reckless increase in taxes. But by this time, the rejection of the central role of the state in the economy – and Thatcher’s war on the unions – had changed the very foundations of British society.
