He responded arguing the merits of her in dealing with the coal miners, and economic liberalisation.
Magaret Thatcher came into power as PM of UK from 1979 and stepped down in 1990 - and was PM for THREE consecutive term in being re-elected.
Her main achievement was dealing with the coal miners and its union that held UK consumers to ransom, and they were defanged during Thatcher's term.
Besides defanging the trade unions, it was during her term as PM of UK that she reduced state intervention in the economy, embraced free markets and encouraged entrepreneurism.
The previous decade of Labor Party of nationalisation was terminated, and all the various nationally-owned enterprises were privatised.
The runaway inflation that plagued UK throughout the 1970s was faced head-on by Thatcher with her daring fiscal policies, which created controversies through out the late 1970s within the Conservative Party and with the economic gurus.
It was only by 1983, when the UK economy responded to all her fiscal policies that UK became stronger with inflation beaten, and the unions disciplined.
Magaret Thatcher remained popular even when her tough policies bite into the pockets of everyone but which had benefitted UK overall with her unique controversial approaches being called Thatcherism - which was recognised as setting the UK on the path to recovery and long term growth.
Her resignation from the Conservative Party was not due to her failure with economic policies but with internal disagreement in having UK joining the Euro Single Currency - which she felt will undermine UK's own sterling pound currency.
How did Magaret Thatcher screw up the economy - when at the time she resigned from the Conservative Party, UK's economy was at its best since the inflationary period during the Labor Party rule in the 1970s - which saw the blight of constant union cat strikes that destabilised the economy ?
Do you know who took over from her to lead the Conservative Party to lose the next election to Tony Blair from the Labor Party ?
I argued that her economic policy on the other hand, contributed to an increase in poverty levels, as well as decreasing UK's industrial output.
I also challenged him in saying how her Magaret Thatcher's policy benefited everyone, and his only response is this.
I simply pointed out that we cannot look at one specific policy and says Margaret Thatcher has benefited everyone.When coal miners strike occur during the worst winter periods, and public transport workers suddenly walked out of their work places during the most inconvenient times - Magaret Thatcher made it her goal in her second term to curtail the powers of the union, and removed the ability to launch wild cat strikes in UK.
Did that not benefit everyone ?
In regards to industrial output, he responsed by saying this.
I argued back by saying that you can't defend someone by saying she didn't screw up badly enough, and the fact that you cannot say she isn't responsible for the state of UK's economy just because she stepped down.Prior to Margaret Thatcher's becoming PM of UK, the previous PM was Edward Heath, who was subjected to pressures from the various powerful trade unions that were not answerable to the electorates, and did as much to protect their own interests. Interestingly, in an autobiography of her, it stated that industrial output did not drop much (if at all) and certainly not the 40% one might expect showing just how much overmanning existed then. (*1)
Was it the fault of her policies that resulted in high unemployment in the early 1990s - just before she stepped down, or was it due to the recession that hit UK then ?
Is there anything else I should have done to pin down his defence of Thatcher?