in certain terms, she was a disaster to the working class in britain. this is beyond dispute.
but, if you follow her carefully, it's not entirely fair to call her heartless. it's less that she thought the poor ought to starve, and more that she thought it should be up the church to step in and provide the services that were cut by the state. and, that wasn't just lip service. she really honestly believed that, and she was very much behind pushing religious institutions to step into the void.
the criticism should consequently be refocused. at the core of this was a kind of social engineering that attempted to reverse the movement of britons towards secularism. in her mind, a more religiously aware society would both provide for greater services and instill that famous protestant work ethic - the absence of which, is what she felt was at the root cause of poverty.
it's warped. absolutely. deeply flawed - no question. and, it will inevitably need to be reversed.
but it's less that she was heartless and more that she was just a tory - and demonstrated the typical level of delusional thinking that is associated with this.