Austerity Broke Britain

Britain was impacted negatively by the global recession in 2008. The population of Britain as a whole were left financially unstable. In 2010 the Conservative party took over from the Labour party and have scarred the people living under their government. The term austerity is more likely to be used when government spending cuts and higher taxes occur during a recession or period of very weak economic growth. Austerity implies that spending cuts and tax increases are highly likely to have an adverse impact on aggregate demand and economic growth. The leader at the time, David Cameron, decided that is was important for the country to be under austerity in response to the incidents of 2008. At the time, the government seen the austerity as the best thing to do as we were stuck in massive debt and George Osborne the Chancellor of the Exchequer wanted to have substantial reductions in public expenditure and this was to be achieved by a combination of public spending reductions and tax increases amounting to £110 billion.

The consequences of Cameron's poor choices have left many people, mainly poor, struggling to keep up with the demands. The austerity affected peoples lives so much that on average, each household owes £15,385, without including mortgages. The gap between the less fortunate and the better off has also widened due to the actions of the Tory government. Councils lost a third of their spending power: buses, planning, housing, youth services and sports facilities were cut or sold off. One service always in the public eye was the NHS. But its 2010 training cuts left it short of 100,000 nurses and doctors. The NHS is a free healthcare service and what sets Britain apart from other places globally and due to the austerity, it had been left criminally underfunded. In 2018, 130 libraries shut and 760 youth clubs closed. We are still seeing the negative effects of the austerity to this day with even more food banks around the country attempting to clean up the governments mess and feed people, food is a necessity and the austerity has left millions still relying on food banks. We are even relying on the youth to inspire and get help for poverty from the government. 23 year old Manchester United and England forward Marcus Rashford has challenged the government numerous amounts of times asking them to increase funding for food banks and to make school meals free for those who need them.