撒切尔夫人领导下的变化

Margaret Thatcher, Britain's prime minister in the 1980s and the architect of huge changes in the UK and internationally has died. In this programme we'll be looking at the radical economic changes in Britain under her leadership.

She had an instinct for economics, which is what you need in a politician. She understood that the government had a role and that the private sector had to be the generative mechanism of prosperity.

Some of it was harsh medicine.

She tackled trade union monopoly. She made people face up to the fact that the world did not owe them a living.

We'll consider whether the cure actually worked. And we'll also be looking at how her ideas spread right across the globe.

It happened all over eastern Europe. It's taken hold in parts of Latin America and of course even in China, as today we have privatisations and the policies that started on the Margaret Thatcher's days, probably arguably the ones that set the same for so many of these things in different parts of the world.

So what about the profound effect she had on the British economy and her influence on global attitudes to market-based economics? World Business Report's editor Martin Webber looks back now at what she changed and why she changed it.

When Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in 1979 Britain was in a desperate state. Globally Britain was seen as a country of strikes and inefficiency. The trade unions were at the height of their powers. Margaret Thatcher's promise was to use the free market to revive the nation.