Assess the reasons why Thatchers economic policies were controversial

Thatchers economic policies throughout her premiership change the post war consensus completely and some of her most controversial economic policies included privatisation, poll tax, the Big Bang and the switch from Keynesian economics to monetarism. Her tough control of trade unions was another controversial issue that Thatcher made an economic policy because the power of trade unions could destroy any recovery she was trying to make.

Thatcher believed that government spending had led to excessive taxation, inflation and borrowing and she wanted a free market economy. Howe reduced income tax by 3% and raised VAT from 8% to 15% which reduced inflation from 22% in 1980 to 4.5% in 1983. This was controversial because it moved away from the post-war economic consensus of full employment, stable prices and Keynesian economics. Monetarism increased the consumer culture and a generation of voter’s who’s goals were purely materialistic. In the 1981 budget Alan Walters increased taxes during the worst recession in 50 years which received criticism from both the Labour and Conservative parties. However in later years the monetarist policies have since been credited with the sustained economic growth of the 90’s but at the time it was still a very controversial policy because it helped shaped the culture of consumerism and unemployment was not tackled.

Privatisation started in 1981 and 82 by selling shared in BP and National oil cooperation. However it was controversial because raising money was neither the origin nor the initial point if this policy, it was the ideology behind it that made it so disputed. Howe, Lawson and Thatcher equated the undergoing ownership of private property with freedom and democracy. This was a controversial idea to man yin Labour because it appeared Thatcher was