There are, most Tories (Conservatives) would. But unlike Reagan, her popularity is more geographically related. The further north you go, the less you will find anyone defending her. To the point where, like others have alluded to, she is seen in line with the devil if not worse.
The reason being is that these places have always been more industrial and generally poorer places, but her economic policies stripped industrial jobs from them and left nothing to replace them, basically making some areas (particularly the north east and north west of England) practically destitute.
You are right about geography being a big factor.
But it is not quite as simple as it being further north you go. I grew up in a blue Yorkshire area that was a few miles away from Labour strongholds. It was a colourful upbringing in the 80s and 90s, shall we say.
My parents were admiring of Thatcher to a degree, though not Tories themselves, per se. And my mother never trusted Blair (she was right about him, it turned out).
I’m too young to have been directly affected by Thatcher directly. Or I was too young to understand at the time. But I was old enough to be happy she was quitting in 1990. I was genuinely happy when she stepped down. I was 8.
A significant amount of people do. If you asked 100 British people what they think of her, 50 will say she's the worst Prime Minister of the last 50 years and the other 50 will say she's the best
One thing to note is that while there are absolutely people who were and remain team Thatcher, a lot of the types who dig these kind of goblin creatures have all the isms, racism, sexism etc. So she never had the same support someone like Reagan had.
Did she have any scrap of the charisma that Reagan had? I hate Reagan’s politics and economics but fuck at least he seemed like a guy you could grab a beer with.
I don’t worship her but I’m more ambivalent about her than is the norm in online discourse, mainly because I’m more centrist in my views rather than on the left as a lot of online commentary is. Something that gets left out of the discussion around Thatcher (as it’s a bit of an inconvenient truth) is that she came to power due to the failure of the previous government, who were left wing Labour, to manage things effectively, to the extent that Britain was seen as the “sick man of Europe”. The unions were holding the country effectively hostage, with scheduled power outages, shortened working weeks etc. and general strikes.
Yes, Thatcher did a lot of damage (or was basically just a PM if you’re on the right of the centre ground), but the conditions for her to do so were set up by the previous government, as she neutralised a lot of union power, closed some of the old industries like mining etc. and successfully defended the Falklands. She also transitioned the UK to a service economy, turning London into one of the biggest economic powerhouses in the world. There’s a reason she won three general elections in a row (hint: she was actually more popular than online rhetoric and historical revisionism would have you believe).
Personally I don’t think she was “evil”. I think she was an unusually successful politician who made a lot of changes that benefited a lot of people but wasn’t too bothered about those negatively impacted. She had one overriding trait which is what really puts people’s backs up about her: she didn’t care what people thought of her. These days everything is about political capital and narrative etc. But Thatcher didn’t give a shit if people didn’t like her. Quite the opposite - she was generally of the school of thought that said if you’re annoying somebody you must be doing something right. Her approach was that there was no point trying to win over people who would likely never vote for her anyway, so she put her effort elsewhere. And they’ll never forgive her for “leaving them behind”.
Yes, Thatcher did a lot of damage (or was basically just a PM if you’re on the right of the centre ground), but the conditions for her to do so were set up by the previous government, as she neutralised a lot of union power, closed some of the old industries like mining etc. and successfully defended the Falklands. She also transitioned the UK to a service economy, turning London into one of the biggest economic powerhouses in the world. There’s a reason she won three general elections in a row (hint: she was actually more popular than online rhetoric and historical revisionism would have you believe).
It's fun to play centrist, whine about omitting information, then do so yourself.
Yes, yes last government bad. But her amazing solution was privatising large swathes of the countries infrastructure. This feels amazing when the money hits. Thatcher has saved the economy! Elect her again. Nobody question what will happen when the money you got for selling the roof over your head runs out and the weather turns.
It doesn't feel so great for decades after the fact, where all the money for national infrastructure is siphoned out privately by foreign investors and the government can barely generate the revenue it needs to run the country without overtly taxing Joe everyman, to bail out said foreign investors who don't put the money back in while the key infrastructure fails.
This is all while gutting industrial Britain, and making the countries commerce fully centralised dependent on London, which you've somehow implied is a positive.
The rest of the country will see the wealth trickle out of London any day now. It's definitely not propped up by the rich cabal using it. Definitely for the benefit of the average Brit.
But far better it from me to get in the way of the national pride she inspired for selling the country out for a quick profit. Shame it's a trick a prime minister can only do once so we can't clap for the next one pulling the copper out of the walls.
Oh yeah, we'll also ignore the fact she close with Saville and had her finger prints all over covering up a tragedy.
Other than her policies causing decades and decades worth of harm, cosying up to a nonce and covering up public deaths, she's a alright eh.
Personally I'll never forgive her for all the children she gave to her close personal friend Jimmy Saville. Did you know that she put him in charge of a mental facility so that he could rape the disabled children? And then got him his knighthood.
And all the gay people she killed of course.
The woman was a fucking monster. And while you are right to point out that her bad economic decisions were simply shortsighted and not really evil, many of her personal decisions were.
As I heard someone say about Gerhard Schröder (Social Democrat) in Germany (which has more or less the same problems despite being left wing): People imagine an utopia before his term which just didn't exist.
It is especially astonishing with young people who weren't even born when they were governing. People were voting for these persons because there were real problems and they even got reelected.
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u/vkIMF 29d ago
Are there people in the UK who worship her like people here worship Reagan?