“The Bitch is Dead,” read the banner paraded through the streets of London yesterday – proof that hatred of Margaret Thatcher lives on, even in death.

Of all the extraordinary accomplishments of Britain’s only female prime minister, surely her outsized and continuing impact on the nation’s psyche is one of the most remarkable. Hardly a contemporary British story is written or West End play produced – witness Billy Elliott or even the comic One Man, Two Guvnors – that doesn’t slam the former leader. “Thatcherism” in some quarters is as loathed as “McCarthyism” in the U.S.

Why this animus? Because Mrs. Thatcher dared to take on what we call today the “special interests” that threatened England’s very survival – the trade unions and their allies. She convinced voters that the country would prosper only through the utter defeat of those who undermined England’s competitiveness and success and then went on to defeat them. For this, she will never be forgiven.

RELATED: Thatcher Inspired Conservatives Around the Globe

The courage to confront the unions and their big government enablers, to stem Britain’s decline into socialism, took guts – the kind that’s rare in the United States today. Our country is slip sliding towards mediocrity in much the same way Britain did in the 1970s.

More and more of our policy decisions are driven not by what’s best for the U.S. but rather what’s best for politicians who chase after voting blocks like hounds on the scent and whose favors are often for sale to the highest bidder. The efficiency of markets has been sidelined for the inefficiencies of K Street loyalties and central planning.

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We have a president who believes that private enterprise is like a puppy – to be patted reassuringly on the head – but not allowed full run of the house. His most notable achievement to date was to place the boot-heel of government effectively on the neck of healthcare, one sixth of our economy.

President Obama does not believe in the capacity of the marketplace to sort out the bewildering challenges of lower-cost healthcare -- or efficient energy policy, or common sense immigration reform or sluggish growth -- he believes in bureaucrats.

Mrs. Thatcher knew better, as did her ally Ronald Reagan. For both, the stranglehold of labor unions and a bloated government-infested economy were out-of-control beasts to be tamed. In 1979, the year she took office, the U.K. suffered 29 million workdays lost to strikes. The disruptions not only cost the country dearly in forgone output, but discouraged those who might invest and build in the U.K.