Look at the state of Britain in the 70's - An economy that was a joke, Unions pretty much running the country, a government that couldn't wipe it's backside without permission from the Union. An international joke!
Do you seriously think the old heavy industries would have survived that much longer even without Thatcher? They weren't closed out of spite, they were closed because they were losing huge amounts of money! And with no hope of a turn around. Frankly I don't want my taxes going on the government spending money keeping the British steel and coal industries running when no one's buying it as it's cheaper to import it! If the British coal industry was making money it wouldn't have been closed down. And let's not forgot that in 1979 around 45% of Union members voted for her!
As for buses and trains, what possible sense does it make for the government to be running transport, or infact any other aspect of public life when you get down to it? All it does it lead to big government, and people in charge of areas which they know nothing about. When you allowed the general public to own and operate such services they have a need to make money, and therefore have to operate in such a manner that allows the supply to meet the demand. With the government in charge it makes no difference whether money is made or not as it all comes from the taxes of the population, whether they use the services or not?
The UK was widely seen as the "sick man of Europe" in the 1970s, under the old socialist Labour Party, and some people even thought we'd end up devolving into a bloody developing country again! Instead, the UK emerged as one of the most successful economies in modern Europe.
She helped open up the market economy in Britain again after years of stagnation, finally realising that Keynesian economics was not the best way to go and introduced a proper monetarism based economic plan, which meant interest rates followed and this in turn lead to the booms on the late 1980s.
Poll Tax though was a f*** up, yes.
Clause 28 and Mandela, fine, she wasn't completly perfect, but then again Che Guevara was a mass murderer but people think it's acceptable to wear t-shirts of him because he was a left-wing terrorist so it's not as if lefties don't hold that against him I don't see why I should hold those things against Mrs T.
As a football fan and season ticket holder I'd be quite happy to have an ID card in order to attend matches to be honest. Not a hooligan so it wouldn't make any difference to me.
Now the pensions scheme didn't turn out as planned, but it's hardly Mrs T's fault that the stockmarket fell. Encouraging private pension though is a good thing as the more people who do it the more firms will off the service which will lead to good market competition which will mean that people will get higher returns on when they pay it.
