to think 'austerity' is unnecessary?

[buckingfrolicks]

So we've had almost 10 years of it and more ahead - but why? Why are we being told that we have to have a period of austerity?

I understand it's an ideological manoeuvre from the Right. But how come we're all apparently accepting austerity as necessary?

AIBU to get very cross indeed every time austerity is trotted out as a justification for cuts here there and everywhere?

No you should, it's an ideological financial plan designed to erode the welfare state and public services

YANBU. We're a prosperous, developed nation, it doesn't make sense.

Okay, so a household is very different from a nation, but as an analogy, if you were hard up for cash and had to adopt an "austere" lifestyle for a while, you wouldn't be paying for expensive sporting events, you wouldn't be lending or gifting money to hard-up friends while neglecting your own children, you wouldn't be boasting about how how much financially better off you'll be as a single parent, etc... Yet in our years of austerity we've still hosted an expensive Olympic Games, we still send aid abroad, and here we are being told Britain is going to do just great after our big divorce from the EU.

So why do we have to accept austerity?

Because Labour didnt effectively challenge the notion that "labour got us into this mess." It wasnt labours fault, and whilst it wasnt great, it certainly wasnt the mess that everyone just accepted that it was.