[dazc]

We've had a few Prime Ministers since Thatcher, was her reach so powerful that she could prevent them from doing anything about this?

I recall Blair saying he regretted not doing enough about energy security when he was in power, I don't recall him blaming Thatcher?

Brown expands nuclear ambitions (2008): The prime minister said that with oil prices soaring, it was time to be "more ambitious" for nuclear plans... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7424158.stm

There has been a long history of failure, by both sides of the political spectrum.

[mattmanser]

Well, yes. Thatcher had a long tenure, a strong majority and enacted sweeping, long-lasting changes.

Blair was the only other recent politician with similar power. He was actually a fan of privatisation and deregulation (and still is, if you read recent interviews).

And recent governments don't even want to fix it, the status quo benefits their rich donors, even if it's massively hurting Britain's long-term prosperity. You've also got a significant section of the Tory party that still believe in the thoroughly discredited neoliberalism Thatcher followed, as seen by Liz Truss' disastrous tenure.

I'm not a Thatcher hater, but there were a lot of negatives as well as positives.