You are reading a single comment by @hugo7 and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
hugo7
You're absolutely right. Austerity was the deliberate shrinking of the state and public services for (right wing, individualist) ideological reasons.
The lie was that this was necessary for reasons of financial prudence.
It's been depressing to see some on the left amplify this lie - that financial prudence and the slashing of public investment are indistinguishable - when in fact they're diametrically opposed.
Genuine financial prudence, for Cameron, at a time of historically low interest rates, would've meant fixing the roof while the sun shined, investing in the NHS, our energy infrastructure and insulation, public services, etc. That way we might've been prepared for Covid, cost of living, and the energy crisis.
This option isn't open to Labour. They're having to fix the roof while the rain is pouring in, and while the markets are still jittery as fuck about borrowing post Truss. I don't necessarily think Reeves has drawn up her response to these constraints perfectly, but imo it's dishonest to to pretend those constraints don't exist, or pretend it's reasonable for a government to simply ignore them (again, especially post Truss).
Genuine economic constraints are not 'austerity', and repeating the lie that they're the same thing just lets the Tories off the hook.