If you completely ignore the context of a global financial crisis in 2008 and pandemic in 2020, I suppose you might think austerity has been unsuccessful.
I'm genuinely curious to the reasoning behind austerity - I confess to not having any academic qualifications in economics but it does seem to me that deliberately removing services from the poorer sections of society is going to introduce more friction to the system, which will lead to poorer outcomes in general. The fact that our public debt continued to soar, even before the pandemic, seems to me to suggest that even on its own terms it wasn't a winning argument.
Do you have any sources that make the argument for austerity? This is a genuine question - as I say I have no formal background in the subject but from what I've managed to find I have found little in the way of convinvcing arguments.
Austerity is not a difficult policy to understand.
If your personal debts had grown exponentially over the past year, and your income showed no signs of exceeding your outgoings, would you not make some effort to reduce your outgoings?
Ah yes, the "maxing out the country's credit card" argument. The national debt is owed in £'s, which the government can create and destroy at will, and much of it is one arm of the government owing another arm of the government. It's nothing like personal debt.
Yes of course, the UK could simply print enough money to repay all its debts and that wouldn’t have any harmful or damaging effects on its economy whatsoever…
Do you have any sources that make the argument for austerity? This is a genuine question - as I say I have no formal background in the subject but from what I've managed to find I have found little in the way of convinvcing arguments.