THE Economist magazine on May 27, 1978, published a confidential document which disclosed the battle plans for what became one of the most divisive periods in British industrial history.

The 1974 Ridley Report recommended that the next Conservative government break up the public sector, close plants that were deemed uneconomic and dismember unions.

A confidential annex to the report, which was leaked to The Economist four years later, explained how Ministers could fight, and defeat, a major strike in a nationalised industry. In short, it was a blueprint for transforming the industrial landscape of Britain.

Baroness Thatcher agreed with the main thrust of the report, which blamed powerful trades unions for ramping up wages that caused inflation.

She believed that unless those powers were checked, Britain had no chance of competing in a global market.

She set about stripping unions of legal protection. The closed shop, which forced people to join a trades union, was outlawed. Flying pickets were banned and strike ballots became compulsory. She set the battle lines for a bitter dispute with the coal industry by referring to those who opposed her as “the enemy within”.

Despite fierce opposition she prevailed.

More than 12 million Britons were union members in 1979, but ten years later membership had fallen by almost half. When she conducted the official opening of Nissan Sunderland in 1986, the plant was singleunion – unprecedented in UK industry. It went on to become one of the most productive in the world.

Her policies succeeded in reducing inflation, but unemployment rose dramatically and some icons of the North- East’s industrial skyline – among them Consett Steelworks – were swept aside.

Her policies also created a more competitive foundation for the economy that led to Britain becoming a centre of the world’s financial industry.

She became an advocate of privatising state-owned industries and utilities, lowering taxes and slashing public spending.

One of her lasting legacies was a nation of private shareholders.

In the 1970s only seven per cent of people in Britain owned shares directly. By the end of the 1980s, a quarter did.

The sell-off of steel, telecom, gas, airways and others swelled the Treasury’s coffers, but led to British utilities falling into foreign hands. Mrs Thatcher was famously a patriot, but Northumbrian Water is owned by a Chinese billionaire and many buy gas and electricity from French of German firms because of policies she started.