DURING the fiscal austerity period (2010–2019), more than 330,000 deaths were attributed to government fiscal retraction – a figure exceeding Covid-19 deaths by more than 100,000.

It seems crass to compare any disaster to another, but it is striking to do so – and not only in numbers. As two Covid inquiries continue – in London and Edinburgh – fiscal austerity measures continue to avoid scrutiny, and this is, in part, why it is so easy for them to continue.

In 2010, welfare was drastically cut, with some estimates suggesting £90 billion a year in total (at the time, around half of Scotland’s GDP). This is an astonishing figure. This amount of money was taken from those who could least afford it.

READ MORE: Expert: Labour doing 'nothing' to reverse 'social murder' policies

Fifteen years later, we have not learned anything. The reason for austerity was to “cut the deficit” and “restore the public finances”. Even if this did work – and there is scant evidence that it does – it is unthinkable that it could be worth the human and social costs. It is truly astonishing that we now face another bout of fiscal austerity directed from Westminster.

In 2012, American economist Paul Krugman said: “The austerity drive in Britain isn’t really about debt and deficit at all; it’s about using deficit panic as an excuse to dismantle social programmes.”

Very little has changed since.

Austerity is a choice, but not only that, it is a deliberate attempt to weaken the power of the majority of those in the UK, as Clara Mattei writes in Capital Order: “No physical weapon could have been as powerful as this theoretical framework in removing agency from workers and justifying private profit.”

The National:

Authors David McCartney and Gerry Walsh do not need to place a question mark after "Social Murder" in the title of their book. The evidence and stories across almost 300 pages make that punctuation mark redundant. Above everything, austerity is a class project. It is social murder.

Over the past year, we have posted frequently about austerity, but it is clearly not getting through. Our short paper "Explaining Austerity" and our work on the austerity paradigm (below) are our attempts to ensure that people understand why austerity is baked into UK politics. I believe that we need to see the size of the challenge before properly attacking the most ideological process.

The National:

Frustration abounds across the academic world. Danny Dorling's despair is palpable in Shattered Nation, released last year: “No revolution will occur that will deliver some kind of rapturous transformation … Housing could become even more precarious than it is already, pension funds could fail, the health and social care crisis could deepen.”

However, the response from David Walsh, when Kairin asked him about his motivation in writing Social Murder?, is almost as shocking as the figures in the book. The reason was political and social apathy.

Here is his full answer: “Well, there's a number of motivations, I think. Obviously, we were doing a lot of work in this area. It's obviously helpful to kind of pull together all the different bits of research that have been done so they're all available in one place. But I suppose the biggest motivation is, the lack of awareness out there about what's been going on.

“And I don't even mean just the general public. I mean, in terms of speaking to lots of politicians. We went through to the Scottish Parliament a few times. I was pretty astounded by the level of ignorance around what's been happening. And when I say what's been happening, the changes to mortality rates among the poorer populations across all of the UK since austerity policies came in have been nothing short of astonishing and horrifying.

“If you look at certain populations where mortality rates have been coming down over many years, which is what should happen in a wealthy society, people should be living longer. That's what mortality rates coming down shows. After 2010, those trends just basically stop coming down and go into reverse.

“So that means that people are no longer living longer. They're basically, on average, dying younger, and it's beyond comprehension how this can happen in such a wealthy society. As I say, you know, as part of the world of research, you do a lot of presentations, you attend a lot of meetings, and the lack of understanding on the part of politicians … but also in the general public – we've tried to get that message out through press releases and all that, and the extent to which that's been successful is questionable.”

We are at a place where left-wing commentators can suggest that austerity is over because the 2024 UK Budget promised additional government spending in the region of £70 billion next year. This is, at best, a welcome reprieve from more cuts. However, to end fiscal austerity, many of the hundreds of measures that were cut would have to be reintroduced. At least half a trillion pounds returned to the poorest in our society to start to redress the balance. But we can never undo the harm, not just in lost lives but in the intolerable suffering still being caused by austerity.

Fiscal austerity will remain as long as the UK has fiscal rules that – unique in the world – have a specific cap on welfare. As I pointed out to Gerry and David during our interview, as deep and insightful as their book is, it only covers one form of austerity. They said nothing about monetary austerity designed to reward the wealthy and keep people unemployed or industrial austerity that ensures government support for capital over labour.

We need to learn more about austerity. Watch our interview with authors David and Gerry on Wednesday here, and you can purchase their book now.