"State-owned assets were privatised, and the rights and influence of unionised labour were severely curtailed, in an attempt to preserve the capitalist system during a deep recession."
My recollection is that the decisions weren't even necessarily being made by the governments (whether left or right). A lot of countries, including the UK, had had to seek bailouts from the IMF, and quite often the IMF would attach stringent conditions including privatisation of nationally owned industries.
(This continues, in one form or another, to this day. For instance, developing countries often can't access aid unless they're prepared to privatise their water industries. Water is something I feel should be run by the state - it's interesting that in the USA, often held up as a beacon of neoliberalism, water companies tend to be publicly owned. The US seems to treat water as a "public good" in the economist's sense.)
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/08/30/why-is-starmer-unsettled-by-a-painting-of-thatcher/
Both overestimate her as both an individual and ideologue. Much of what is today called ‘Thatcherism’ was carried out all across the West, by centre-left and centre-right governments alike. State-owned assets were privatised, and the rights and influence of unionised labour were severely curtailed, in an attempt to preserve the capitalist system during a deep recession. And this settlement is one that Labour has shown no interest in upturning, beyond some tinkering around the edges of already eviscerated trade-union rights. If this thing they call ‘Thatcherism’ is really a unique, historic wrong, they have shown no signs of wanting to right it.
This pantomime rage against the long-since-departed Thatcher, then, acts as a substitute for political substance. There were few divides of any significance between Labour and the Tories at the last General Election. For all that Starmer fumes against the alleged malevolence of the last government, he has gladly doubled down on its core policies – from its economic agenda to its prurient nanny statism. On the rare occasions where differences do emerge, they have to be played up, blown out of all proportion and postured against relentlessly. Clearly, Starmer has started to buy into his own absurd caricature of the Tories and its former prime ministers.