It's actually possible that Thatcher/Reagan were inevitable. Unions had evolved from Walter Reuther to Jimmy Hoffa, and everyone was sick of leasing their rotary phone from AT&T. The problem, of course, is that a leader can't get traction by saying "I'm for innovation; let's have some common sense reforms." But they can get a hell of a lot of traction by opening their campaign on the doorstep of a terrorist massacre to rant about states' rights. Leading the horse to clean water is what democrats try to do. Getting the horse to drink whatever sewer water is in front of it is what republicans do.
I think that fundamentally, both sides of the argument have to push things to the point where the middle is willing to deal with it. Labor in the UK was malignant. They got eliminated because of it. Labor in the US led to the PATCO strike. That was fuckin' that. Now the UK exports nothing but reality television and Amazon employees piss in bottles.