Was there a Thatcher revolution (1979-1990) ?

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[...] Blair, accepted some of Thatcher's key policies like limiting local public expenditure, trying to get more "bang for the buck" in the welfare state (and especially through the introduction of means testing: govt checks if you really need the welfare goodies before delivering them), though they were much more restrained in addressing the "dependency culture." In terms of style, Blair and Brown were similar to Thatcher: strong, decisive (authoritarian?) leader that would go against the old guard of the party, relative marginalization of the Cabinet, effective use of communication (press secretaries to "hammer the message across" to the electorate). -Britain's Foreign Policy: Thatcher basically gave Britain the courage to (overly?) assert its role on the world stage. [...]

[...] before getting them), tried to cut back social expenditure (bitch was especially successful in education: 10% cut in real terms 1979-1986). In parallel, she also aimed to encourage self-responsibility, for example by allowing people to own their homes (sale of council houses was quite popular). Britons also gained more access to consumer goods (#phones ) through cheap credit. She also succeeded in reducing local government expenditure, however public spending at the national level remained stable during the Thatcher years. -Social divisions: Thatcher's policies also had the unintended effect of making Britain more unequal than before. [...]

[...] Britain became more unequal than she had ever been after WW2. The Welfare state remained in place and public spending as a whole did not significantly decrease, yet it had now become a social reality that social services would be more expensive and would no longer be universal in the future. Conclusion Popular opinion often judges Thatcher as one of 20th century Britain's most important politicians. Indeed, her impact was profound on all fronts. She oversaw large changes in Britain's economic structure as well as social transformations. [...]

[...] An Economic Revolution? -Thatcher promised a complete break with Keynesianism and government intervention by adopting Monetarism, supply-side economics, and defending the free market. Effectively this meant that the economic policy's priority would switch from fighting unemployment with low interest rates+ govt spending to fighting inflation reducing the money supply, through higher taxes, spending cuts, higher interest rates. Thatcher applied it ASAP after being elected and got inflation from highs of 20ish% to around along with whopping unemployment rates. After 1984 government gave up on trying to target parts of the money supply, effectively abandoning full monetarism. [...]

[...] New Labor has perhaps more in common with Thatcher's New Right than with the Old Labour and has accepted the breaking of trade unions + mining/industry (the heart of its traditional electorate privatization, deregulation, rationalization of the welfare state . Although her impact remains divisive today, all political figures agree that she revolutionized British politics. Her true legacy is not to have achieved all her ideological and political aims, but to have redefined the new political middle ground around which Labor/Tories fight. [...]