Austerity is a narrative largely attributable in the UK at least to David Cameron and George Osborne,
Well, no, not really. It’s an invention of the left. For there hasn’t been any austerity. UK govt spending has risen in cash terms, real and as a percentage of GDP.
and resulted in further inequality within the UK society……again, increasing inequality.
The Gini Index has fallen since the days of New Labour
Tsk.
A glossary? Another list, then. How long is it? Has set a record?
BiS
It’s 36,000 words – I couldn’t write that when I had COVID, long or otherwise, let alone had it nearly 5 times…
to a sample of his ‘austerity’ entry:
None of this was necessary: the inappropriate application of the household analogy to the management of the finances of the UK’s macroeconomy led to destruction of economic power within the country that firstly led to Brexit, because of the disenchantment of many with the government that imposed this programme and secondly has led to a persistent poor economic performance in the UK when compared to all other countries of similar size and economic development meaning that by 2023 it had uniquely failed to recover from the economic downturn caused by the Covid crisis
This might well be like reading through a chapter of ‘Mein Kampf’ in terms of its relation to reality – indeed its arguably that a certain Austrian from the 20s might actually be nearer to corresponding with it than the ‘man from Ely’ is…
I wonder if bearded guru Simon Wrong-Lewis will sue him for plagiary
Austerity is a narrative largely attributable in the UK at least to David Cameron and George Osborne
I hate the current usage of the word narrative, whose meaning has been variously hijacked, twisted and misunderstood or misused by illiterate fvckwits like Murphy. Narrative means “story”. He means something like “set of policies”.
Glossary? More like a tossary.
Richard Murphy’s Economic Pessary.
It suited Gideon’s book to play the hard man implementing austerity policies; and it suits Labour’s book to pretend it was actually happening. But, as others have already pointed out, it wasn’t happening at all.
It may be that there were some areas of government that had tightened budgets (though I’m struggling to think of many), but these were more than compensated for by the huge increases in spending on health, education, transport, defence, etc.
Weeellll, OGH is clearly correct in terms of “UK govt spending has risen in cash terms, real and as a percentage of GDP.”
A quick gander at the OECD* numbers tells you this. Not a problem.
You’re left with two possible objections, the first being spending priorities were shifted from “fings wot I like” to “fings wot I don’t like”, which is probably most of it.
Then, minor technical hitch – the per capita basis. The Argument Which Must Never Be Made. ‘Cos, reasons.
Obviously, net immigration was running up to the 350,000 mark over the period. That’s roughly 50%, or more, of the annual birth numbers from ~16-18 years prior.
This Must Never Be Mentioned.
*Minor technical hitch, they seem to have introduced a definitional change beginning 2008, so the numbers only go back to 2007. Annoying.
New Labour was the only government in my lifetime which simultaneously made the rich richer and the poor poorer. So of course the Gini index peaked just before the financial crash – what is even worse is that *after* the financial crash the Gini index was *still* higher than at any time during the premierships of Mrs Thatcher or John Major.