Thatcher leaves legacy of social destruction and economic collapse
The death of Margaret Thatcher has provoked as much controversy as many of her actions did during her divisive, and hugely influential, political career.
Her damaging role during the H-block protests and hunger strikes, the subsequent shoot to kill policies of the British security forces under her control during the mid to late 1980s in the North and her failure to endorse a potential political solution to the conflict were recalled by many Irish people.
In Britain, the divisions she fermented through her economic and social policies which devastated working class communities, including those traditionally dependant on coal mining and steel, were highlighted.
The enforcement of an unjust poll tax, which contributed to her forced exit from politics in 1990, her repression of the trade union movement and other progressive voices and her adoption of neo-liberal market-led policies, to the exclusion of more socially inclusive models, were also recalled.
There is no question that the dominant ideology she espoused directly contributed to the economic and banking collapse of 2008 so many years after she had wreaked such havoc with the lives of working people across Britain.
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