Having been on the dole I can sympathise (was quite a few years after Thatcher though for me)

I think the biggest problem with Thatcher is she recognised the old industries were dead but didn’t do enough to replace them - Nissan Sunderland perhaps being one of her few successes on this front

It also easy to forget that the closure of the mines is one of the reasons our CO2 emissions have gone down - mind the demise of UK coal was as much Scargill’s doing and Thatchers

the classic liberal in me (vs. modern "liberal") didn't like her authoritarianism

but she saved the country by smashing the trade unions that were holding elected governments (both Labour and Conservative) and the rest of the country to ransom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week

trade union domination over the government is now thankfully a thing of the past