BT --you forgot to mention the Trade Unions who crippled the country long before Thatcher was in charge.
We, as a country, have been good at pushing the self-destruct button for well over 50 years whether it was governments or Trade Unions.
The docks, shipbuilding, car manufacture, coal industry, aircraft manufacture etc., etc. all suffered very badly because of one or the other. It has been a collective responsibility that it has been allowed to get to where it is now.

I always paid my workers well over the minimum wage, even though the whole success of the business depended on my being able to find enough out-of-print books to catalogue in order to keep the business going.
I am pleased that I shut down when I did at the end of 2008 because I would not be able to pay the going rate because the book trade has suffered because of the digital age and I could not have increased my incomings to pay the extra amounts. Consequently there would have been an extra 10 people looking for work in an area where there isn't much on offer.