Winter of Discontent

[Ocean Seal]

Okay so I looked it up but it seems to me that I don't understand how Thatcher actually won the election following the strikes. I see how it may have been a cold water reaction, but one thing that the wiki said was that the people were disappointed with the governments inability to control the mass strikes. If the strikes were massive then wouldn't much of the electorate have been on strike? Wouldn't they support the Labour party instead or look for a more extreme party rather than voting for Thatcher? If the people see that they're pay is being frozen and the government got a several billion pound bailout to control inflation, why would they support the more conservative party?

Are there any comrades with firsthand experience of what happened?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent

Any help would be appreciated.