Re "Thatcher's Divided Isle," by A. C. Grayling (Op-Ed, April 9):
I was living in Britain when Margaret Thatcher came into power. It was 1979, the "winter of discontent," when widespread strikes forced a vote of no confidence in James Callaghan's Labour government.
Public expenditures were 42.5 percent of gross domestic product. Inflation was in double digits. Unemployment was rising, and there were controls on prices, wages, dividends and currency.
Mrs. Thatcher took on these dismal economic circumstances with vigor. Unimpressed by bullying from unions, she out-toughed them, and Britain became once again a place where businesses could flourish and attract investment, all to the benefit of the work force. Britain moved from the sixth largest economy in the world to the fourth largest.
She was magnificent. I doubt that we will see the likes of her again any time soon.
MARGARET McGIRR
Greenwich, Conn., April 9, 2013
To the Editor:
When I lived in London in the late 1960s, I was acutely aware of the myriad problems facing Britain, yet there was still much to admire about a government that actually served and protected its most vulnerable citizens.
So I was shocked and revolted by what I found upon my return in the late 1980s, some 20 years later: hordes of homeless people, many of them children and elderly, living in the subways, pedestrian underpasses and rail stations; the faces of unspeakable human misery; and the all-too-human faces of Margaret Thatcher's odious policies.
When I raised this with a British friend, he sighed and told me that there was a name for such people: "Thatcher's Army."
VAUGHN A. CARNEY
Stowe, Vt., April 9, 2013
To the Editor:
In the midst of mostly laudatory commentary, A. C. Grayling provides a starkly different view of Margaret Thatcher's legacy, arguing that she was a polarizing leader who ushered in a new era of division, inequality and incivility.
Many others have provided commentary on the close working relationship Mrs. Thatcher shared with Ronald Reagan ("Thatcher, Reagan and Their Special Relationship," by Nicholas Wapshott, Op-Ed, nytimes.com, April 9).
It should come as no surprise that the political philosophies shared by Mr. Reagan and Mrs. Thatcher led to the same outcome: the widespread division that plagues life in America is rooted firmly in the policy initiatives begun in the Reagan administration.
RANDALL R. YOUNG
Rochester, Mich., April 9, 2013
To the Editor:
A. C. Grayling's article about Margaret Thatcher was remarkably one-sided. Ir leaves the impression that when Mrs. Thatcher came into office, she inherited a stable, prosperous Britain from the Wilson-Callaghan Labour governments of the 1970s and then proceeded to break the unions and destroy the manufacturing base and the mining industry.
In fact, the Britain that Mrs. Thatcher inherited was economically stagnant, with skyrocketing inflation, high unemployment and an industrial base frozen by union strikes and fuel shortages.
This culminated in the "winter of discontent" of 1978-79, when unions nationwide went on strike. Even the gravediggers in Liverpool took advantage of the Callaghan government's weakness and went on strike, and the unburied dead piled up.
Mrs. Thatcher pulled Britain out of a social and economic tailspin and restored it to its proper place as one of the major global economies and powers.
SCOTT D. PLATTON
Washington, April 9, 2013
To the Editor:
According to David Brooks (column, April 9), Margaret Thatcher changed British values for the better, away from cooperation, self-exploration and narcissism to the "vigorous virtues" of ambition, competition and rectitude.
What quaint world does he live in, where ambition and competition are never narcissistic but only to be equated with rectitude?
Certainly not a historical one: those of us who lived through Mrs. Thatcher's 1980s witnessed an enormous explosion in narcissistic ambition and selfish, greedy, unregulated competition.
JAMES WOOD
Cambridge, Mass., April 9, 2013
The writer is a staff writer at The New Yorker.
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