Too often Maggie Thatcher crossed the line from strong to headstrong. It is one thing to know your own mind and to be unflinching but another not to listen to good advice.
What people have to realise, Thatcher followed a long line of publicly educated old style tory leaders. She had seen the weakness of people like Ted Heath who were concencus politicians who were struggling to come to terms with the loss of the Empire and there was a sense of defeatism in the government. Not for her the concilatary approach and the beer and sandwiches at Downing Street to keep union leaders sweet.
Sadly most of her policies were disasterous for this country. In the early 80's sky high interest rates and a too strong pound decimated alot of our industry which was in already in a bad way and lead to serious unemployment. Later in the 80's when things had improved a little inflation was allowed to get out of control and soon after ended up with 13% interest rates again that caused another recession with tens of thousands of people having their homes repossesed.
When it comes to the miners strike, has there ever been a better example of both sides being both right and wrong at the same time , The NUM were right to defend the future of our coalfields but totally went about it the wrong way, Arthur Scargill still thought it was 1974 and believed strong armed tactics and flying pickets were more important than a national ballot that would have legitimised the strike. As for The Tory government they had a strong case to rationlize and modernise many of the loss making state owned industries but they failed to offer a positive alternative other than unemployment.
When it came to foreign policy Maggie Thatcher's strengths were to her advantage. She turned the shambles of the loss of the Falklands into an amazing victory considering our forces had to travel 8,000 miles. Also she gave Ronald Reagen the mettle to face down the Soviet Union with an arms race that bankrupted Russia and it's allies. When Gorbachov came to power he realised that it couldn't carry on and the three leaders worked togeather to start disarming and have a better relationship between East and West. This in turn led to the collapse of communism in eastern Europe.
It can be said that Thatcher had bigger balls than most men but she did show signs of being a bit mad.