The Tory austerity myth told us that the only way to reduce public borrowing was a massive programme of public sector spending cuts.
During the austerity years the Tories and their Lib-Dem enablers pushed all kinds of ruinous policies that resulted in the slowest economic recovery in centuries, and the worst collapse in the value of UK workers' wages since records began, but perhaps the most damaging aspect of all was their deliberate reduction in infrastructure investment so that the UK became the lowest-investment country in the entire developed world.
The bulk of the Tory austerity cuts (especially reductions in local government funding and cancelled infrastructure projects) have been deliberately aimed at non-Tory voting areas like the North East, South Wales, the central belt of Scotland, and the former industrial cities of Yorkshire, the North West, and Midlands.
Infrastructure investment is generally a strong fiscal multiplier, especially at times where the cost of borrowing is exceptionally low (like the last decade), because this kind of spending creates jobs and economic demand in the short-term, and increases the future economic potential of an economy in the long-term (high-skill, high-tech, high-pay companies are far more likely to locate in places with great infrastructure, than places with failing public services and outdated and over-crowded public transport links).
It seems too obvious to have to spell it out in simple like this, but a near-decade of Tory austerity fanaticism has proven that huge swathes of the UK population will simply believe that the only way to reduce borrowing is to wantonly slash spending on the things that actually increase economic potential and prosperity!
The latest evidence that "let's cut our way to growth" austerity fanaticism is completely backwards comes from the Office for National Statistics data on economic surpluses and deficits by region, which demonstrates a strong correlation with their data on investment on stuff like infrastructure and public transport.
It's surely no coincidence that the two regions with by far the highest levels of public investment in infrastructure and public transport also have the biggest per capita surpluses, while the three most austerity-blighted regions with the lowest levels of investment are the ones with the worst per capita deficits.
Of course this isn't a hard and fast rule, because the North West and Scotland buck the trend slightly in the graph with larger per capita deficits despite higher rates of investment, but it's important to note that these regions have also suffered much more severely due to Tory austerity fanaticism compared to regions with higher levels of habitual Tory-voting, like the South West, East of England, and East Midlands.
All the evidence points to the fact that the Tories have got it completely backwards. That cutting the deficit is achieved by increased public investment, and that low-investment high-austerity regions continue running deficits.
The more you cut, the worse the deficit.
But this blatant Tory backwardness won't bother most people.
Most of the mainstream media will continue refusing to explain explaining the relatively simple fact that austerity fanaticism does exactly the opposite of what the Tories claimed it would, so they people won't even know about it, and many of those who do somehow come across the mountains of evidence that austerity is completely backwards economic gibberish will simply ignore it because it actually takes bravery to admit that you've been the subject of a decade-long con job, when it's much easier on the ego to just ignore the compelling evidence that you got totally duped.
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