Those saying Thatcher would have acted more closely on the science...
I'm old enough to remember vividly her (first) U-turn on environmentalism. She had been in power 10 years and had been adamantly denying the problems of acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, and global warming.
Then she opened her trap in 1989 and made a speech at the Royal Society warning of climate change and environmental dangers.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22069768
The people with whom I was working at the time were very pleased that she'd deigned to tell us what we'd been telling her(!), although rather floored by her chutzpah.
Just checking that date now, I learn she made another U-turn in her later years, under the influence of right-wing think tanks which claimed environmentalism was a socialist plot.
theecologist.org/2018/oct/17/who-drove-thatchers-climate-change-u-turn
Another incident I remember from the Thatcher years was some much-touted report by an "independent" committee of scientists who'd been brought in to "advise" the government on some hot button issue (environment or nuclear power or the like, can't remember detail). I'd been slightly surprised the report had supported the government's position, but thought, "Well they must know best."
A few months later, I found myself talking to one of the authors. He told me the the "independent" committee had been locked in a room and told, "We're not dictating what you should say, but the government's position is X and you'll be staying there until your conclusion matches it."
Clearly the following the science came a poor second to political dogma with Thatcher.