From my brief experience, Thatcher isn't so universally admired in the UK either.
That's certainly true. I have family members there that still blame Thatcher for everything.
When you point out that she left 20 years ago and was replaced by a Labour govt., and why didn't they fix things? You get spluttering and “it takes time to change” noise...:^)
It's the usual problem of trying to get logic from a liberal.