Thatcher caused misery for millions of people

RECENTLY, VE Barrett (Letters, August 24) suggested a Margaret Thatcher would be good for Ireland.

In reply, Jack Downey strongly disagreed. I’m with Jack Downey. That woman caused misery to millions of ordinary decent working Britain (including making 3 million of them unemployed). She destroyed communities directly, by destroying industries that supported them, such as steel, mining and shipbuilding. She destroyed communities indirectly, by selling off council houses, thus undermining social cohesion on council estates. She undermined communities and society as a whole by encouraging individualism whilst mocking the common good. She made the poor poorer and the rich very much richer.

Mr Downey said that Thatcher and Reagan were monetarists. Maybe they were. What is certain is that both of them embraced the most destructive ideology humankind devised after Nazism. This is neoliberalism — the promoter of greed and of the worship of money. The justifier of stealing wealth from the poor and giving it to the rich. All this is Thatcher’s legacy. Oh yes, and along with Reagan, Thatcher also supported, and was a good friend of the fascist leader in Chile, Augusto Pinochet. She described Nelson Mandela as a terrorist. Really, this tells everything about Thatcher.