The economic achievement of Thatcher/Major was phenomenal,
I am afraid I dont see it that way. Heath also sought to break union power, but failed. He failed because he did not have sufficient support form the general public. It took a few more years for the country to come round to the idea that wages had to be cut and industry modernised and streamlined rather than subsidised. Once this had happened, Thatcher was able to bring in policies to do this, though she was immensely cautious in doing this. The time was right for it and therefore it happened.
On the flip side there were big problems. There might not have been a second term had the Argentines not invaded the Falklands.
The Poll tax was an insane idea whose results probably persist today. A large number of people instantly disappeared from the electoral register because they refused to pay. In a democracy? The principle of paying to vote remains in force.
There was nothing wrong with the policy of selling council houses, but everything wrong with the policy of forbidding councils to build new ones to meet housing need. This was coupled with a policy of preventing the private sector from building houses. This was INSANE! It is a big contributor to our current problems.
This administration cemented the idea that university education would be paid for by students not the state. It dismantled the notion that higher education was done to benefit the country and so would be paid for by the country. Instead we have increasingly moved to the position that university is a personal luxury. More people go but skill shortages increase. The idea of elitist education being desireable was further stamped on by adding some more coffin screws to the grammar school system, which for hundreds of years had provided an educated elite the state needed. Now we believe in mediocrity.
Demolition of the minimg industry continued apace. From the one extreme of subsidising everything, the country lurched to subsidising nothing. This leads us directly to the situation now, where the countries last train manufacturer has been put out of operation for no good economic reason. If this persists much longer, never mind coal mines, we wont even have power stations within the UK.
The Conservatives have had years with the reputation of being the nasty party.
Understandable if under their administration your town disappeared because its industry closed, you cannot get a home because there are none anywhere near somewhere there might be jobs, failings in the NHS led to relatives of yours dying, your kids go to a crap school.
Yes, the economy was turned around. But it is increasingly clear the gap between rich and poor is enlarging, and this is increasingly not acceptable. The switch to dependence on the finance industry, a traditional conservative bastion, has proved disastrous.
Lets not discuss gay rights, to which conservatives have come kicking and screaming despite at least their fair share of closet cases. The one good thing to be said about HIV was it forced conservatives to take gay people seriously and concede the idea that people had sex.
There is a real difficulty for the Conservatives in getting across a message which is not warm and cuddly. Labour have the cut less, cut later idea, which translates into Labour would not make any cut which hurts today. Oh the luxury of opposition! Conservatives have the difficult decisions.
At the last budget the conservatives basically adopted the position already prepared by labour when in power. What was difficult about that? At this moment they are commencing quantitative easing again, which they derided when labour did the same.
For example if they do nothing about the NHS it will fall to bits with an ageing and less fit population and more expensive medical techniques.
Isnt it a paradox that things are getting worse because there exist better techniques for care while the old ones which we have managed with thus far have become cheaper?