Introduction

While Chapter 1 very much concentrates on the macroeconomics of austerity, and the politics of why it happened, this chapter looks at some of the consequences. Post 3.1 relates a particularly egregious example of stigmatising those receiving benefits to justify welfare cuts. Post 3.5 talks about how austerity, along with other measures, were skewed to hit the poor. Post 3.4 looks at flooding, which was also partly a consequence of austerity, although few in the media made the link. Post 3.7 looks at the NHS, and how the word ‘protected’ was abused to disguise the impact of austerity.

The remaining posts focus on political implications. In Post 3.2 I link declines in real wages in the UK and the Netherlands to the rise of the far right in each country. Post 3.3 looks at how Cameron’s attempt to change the image of the Conservatives away from the ‘nasty party’, as it was described by Theresa May, was being derailed by austerity. It is a bit of a stretch, but I do think the closeness of the Scottish independence vote owed a lot to austerity. Post 3.6, written just before the vote, lambastes the Scottish National Party (SNP) over its denial of the short-term fiscal costs of independence.

3.1

Nasty Politics in Hard Times

Monday, 8 April 2013

This is a post about morality rather than economics, and as a result I am rather unsure about whether I should be writing it at all. Yet it is something that I have kept thinking about over the last few days, even though I would rather put it out of my mind. So perhaps this is blogging as therapy.

When jobs are scarce, people become understandably more exercised about the idea that some people are getting an income from the state without trying to find a job, just as they imagine that immigrants are ‘stealing’ what jobs there are. Such views are encouraged by the tabloid press. The tabloids are our equivalent of Fox News.

There has recently been a particularly egregious example of this in the UK. For those UK readers I just have to say the Philpott case and the Daily Mail, and they can skip the rest of the paragraph.