Many criticised disinvestment because of its economic impact on ordinary black South Africans, such as British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who described sanctions and disinvestment as "the way of poverty, starvation and destroying the hopes of the very people – all of them—whom you wish to help." John Major, then her Foreign Secretary, said disinvestment would "feed white consciences outside South Africa, not black bellies within it", although in 2013, he said that the Conservative Government led by Margaret Thatcher was wrong to oppose tougher sanctions against South Africa during the apartheid era.