Less than 2 years after coming to power, the streets of most major cities were aflame. Discord/harmony fail.

Several years later, the mining industry was destroyed in many of the places that relied on the pits for employment, and where RL flourishes. The hope and despair part reversed really. Fail again.

But I recall Essex man could afford a new white transit van. So, a price worth paying for sure.

In Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address in 1861 he said this:

"In doing this [preserving the union] there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority".

4 years later a bitter civil war had torn the country apart, cost Lincoln his life as well as the lives of 620,000 more citizens of the United States.

But the Union was preserved and Lincoln is regaded as the greatest president the US has seen.

The moral of this story is that sometimes difficult decisions have to be made for the benefit of the greater good. It is the same with Thatcher and the UK. The unions had too much power and had to be brought to book. This caused pain and suffering for some, of that there is no doubt. But in the long run, this was the only way the unions could be challenged. Out of turmoil came a better society. This is one of the reasons why Thatcher is revered by so many.

And black people in the South, in my lifetime, were still the subject of segregation, some fooking legacy that was.

Your point is?

I am not sure of your definition of "society" but if it is in any way conventional then you clearly did not live in the UK pre-Thatcher and immediately post-Thatcher. What you think you've understood from a textbook is blantantly incorrect. You must remember that people who write history books for kids are writing from a biased perspective more often than not. Anyway, you should be in bed now I assume?

Yes.

Was this supposed to be a counter to my point ?

You are using opinion polls of unknown validity in order to judge a Prime Minister's record of political and social achievement over three terms of office, a length of service which gives any Prime Minister sufficient distance between themselves and any predecessor to claim all of the credit, or debit, for themselves.

Lest we forget, her own cabinet evicted her from the job, her own cabinet who would be rated by the Tory cabinet of 2012 as far more right wing than they, even her own cabinet thought that she had gone too far in her ideology - maybe you should search for that poll and add it to your list ?

So answer the question, honestly for a change, just how old were you when she left 10 Downing Street choking back the tears of defeat after being ousted by her peers ?

I'm sorry but just to make it clear, I don't respond (excluding this one obviously) to cheap jibes about whether I live with my mummy, or should be in bed etc. If you want a debate, then debate. If you want to throw jibes, throw jibes, but you won't get any more of my attention.

They are only of 'unknown validity' because you disagree with them and are attempting to discredit them.

Every single one of them, has her ranked in the top five. Not just one or two, every one of them, and some even rank her first. That's not fluke or mistake. That's because her achievements are recognised and respected by the general public and historians / academics alike. Why would people vote her so high otherwise?

But ok, what do you suggest we should use instead to judge her tenure? A list of recessions doesn't prove much as the polls show.

Oh and to answer your question. I am 27.

So good for society was she that I distictly recall ordinary housewives in their ordinary every day household clothes, complete with aprons (or 'pinnies') stood outside their local pub in Sheffield at lunchtimes, presumably while their children were at school, acting as prostitutes to feed their families. I am not talking about the miners strike here either. If that's what you call good for society then you are one sick individual.

They are of unknown validity simply because of that, you offer no knowledge of the actual questions asked, the size of the poll, the source and social mix of the polled, nothing but a meaningless list - as has been pointed out, any one of us could ring ten households in Featherstone tonight and draw the conclusion that she must have been the worst person ever to walk this earth - that would also be a poll albeit not a very balanced one - see how it works now ?

I can forgive you your lack of practical knowledge of what her government and its policies did to communities in the 1970s and 80s and through into the 90s simply because you weren't born (as I suspected) when she was first elected, nor were you born when she embarked on what was possibly the most socially diversive policy that any British Prime Minister has ever undertaken, an action that affected huge swathes of the north and midlands for ten to fifteen years afterwards and wiped out communities that had existed for a hundred years and several generations - as one who lived in a mining community in the north east from '77 to '85 I know what devastation is in communities, I was lucky as I wasn't directly involved but I watched one of my brother in laws go through it and you will not read in your history books anything like the truth.