Opinions about Thatcher tend to be polarised as she created a big social impact known as ' the Thatcher revolution'. Saying she was a bad prime minister will be agreed with in some places in the UK, especially the north and Scotland due to these being more working class areas. But it is also important to note that many people think she was one of the best prime ministers Britain has ever had. I'll take a few examples of her policies to try and show why people thought this way.

Thatchers economic policy was largely based on Privatisation, having a smaller government and reducing public spending with the aim of reducing inflation that had been growing throughout the 70's. She used higher interest rates and spending cuts, which brought down the level of inflation but also caused a spike in unemployment, especially in old industries common in northern cities like Liverpool and Newcastle.

She also greatly weakened the power of trade unions in Britain. 'The winter of discontent' had brought down Callaghans Labour government in 1979 and there had been miners strikes in 1972 and 1974 that had severely undermined Edward Heath's Convservative Government. Thatcher largely blamed the decline of the economy since the mid 60's to the rising power of the trade unions and introduced policies that tackled the threat of another general strike stalling the economy again. While this may sound good there were many, once again in manufacturing industries, that felt this was unfair and many were laid off or recieved pay cuts.

Her foreign policy is also a major talking point. The Falklands war is often seen as a large waste of resources by many and a huge gamble that could have failed. Tony Benn (a left wing labour figure) said she didn't try to find a peaceful solution either. While you can argue that this is a waste for a couple of islands of the coast of Argentina, it did provide of boost for self confidence for Britain, which was ever becoming a less powerful player on the world stage. It also enhanced the British-American alliance that had been drifting apart in the preceding decades. Thatcher was probably Britain's most influential prime minister on the world stage since WW2, she had good relations with Garbachev and especially Reagan, often acting as an emissary between the two Cold war powers and is given some credit for her role in bringing down the Berlin wall.

I hope this is enough for you to see why she did and still does polarise opinions so much in Britain. If you want me to expand on any points feel free to ask.

I can only really comment on her policy of Northern Ireland which is why Irish people have a strong disliking of her. She refused to negotiate with the IRA prisoners in the HM Prison Maze and refused to grant them political prisoner status which by itself caused quite a controversy. However the prisoners went on a hunger strike and refused to use the toilet services provided, instead preferring to make a mess. After a few months this all began to get really bad when public figures such as Bobby Sands died as a result of the strike. This lead to a surge in violence in Northern Ireland and later an assassination attempt on Thatcher herself. She did however make strides in peace talks such as the Anglo-Irish Agreement but this is largely over-shadowed by the violence and protests.

there was a flurry of questions about Margaret Thatcher around the time of her death. These threads may be useful to you, since they are more general questions:

• From an objective stand-point. Why is Margaret Thatcher so hated by the British Community?

• When people defend Margaret Thatcher by arguing she "broke up the unions" what do they mean?

• Why were Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher's legacies so disparate despite being politically similar?

• Why is Margaret Thatcher a controversial figure?

Addressing the follow up questions:

The employment did improve alot during the mid 80's, unemployment came down as did inflation althought towards the end of her tenure there was a slight rise in both which is attributed to her downfall. In general though, she left the economy in a better state than which she found it. Whether that was her polices doing, is open to interpretation.

In terms of welfare, she sold off a lot of the council houses when she came into power. By 1984 800,000 people had bought council houses. This was very popular for middle class people and people who could now buy the council house they had been living in for a long time, but not for the younger working class. There were severe cuts to higher education which reduced the amount of scholarships and grants for university places. She didn't make any major changes to the NHS intially but in her second term gave doctors a greater control over their own budgets - This was very unpopular, especially in Glamorgan in 1989 where the conservatives suffered a heavy defeat in a by-election.

She made a major upheaval to the education system, introducing the national curriculum and GCSE's. Questions have been raised over the years about GCSE's but they are still the current standard in England. She gave schools and the parents of the students more control of the school by giving the option to opt out of loud authority control and the school budgets were more often controlled by Head teachers.

Poll tax: "The proposal for poll tax would be completely unwantable and politically catastrophic" (Nigel Lawson). This was Thatchers flagship reform and was a flat rate paid by every adult, this was seen as incredibly unfair and there were a few violent protests when it was implemented in Scotland in 1989 and was scrapped by John Major in 1991. /u/InscrutableTed has mentioned Section 28 which was unpopular with Gay Activists

I think it is fairly easy to see from these that the class gap did widen during this time.