Thatcherism changed Britain. That is the compromise between supporters and detractors or Margaret Thatcher's time as Prime Minister. Whether you believe she saved Britain, ruined Britain or somewhere between such positions, no one can deny that she radically altered Britain from the days of the post-war consensus under Attlee, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Home, Wilson, Heath and Callaghan.
Under her time as Prime Minister, Britain saw the end of trade union power, the end of a political consensus that many thought had failed and the beginning of a new Britain that became the trading place of the world while it also saw the destruction of industrial areas, the start of another consensus that many think has failed and an over-dependency on the financial sector. One half of Britain thinks highly of her and the other half does not, to put it mildly.
Many works look into what could have been, some even look into the Thatcher period itself, some ask what Britain could have been without her, with her present in politics but not as Prime Minister, what if she survived the power-grab of Heseltine, what if she perished in the Brighton Bombing and what if the Falklands War never happened or happened at an earlier time.
This timeline, however, will not be looking into such things. This timeline will be focusing on an alternate Thatcher years, there shall be changes, I do not intend to simply parrot what happened in our own timeline but there will be similarities as there are changes and I sincerely hope that everything here is both plausible and satisfying to the reader.
To start, let us ask what if a certain man stayed the target for a group and another man was spared their wrath...