What happened to austerity?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2019
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the UK approaches a general election, both major parties have been promising billions of extra pounds to go into hospitals, social care and other public benefits. All this spells an apparent end to ten years of a policy of limited government spending, also known as austerity. The BBC’s Andy Verity explains austerity and what it was meant to do. But why has it ended now? Economists Vicky Pryce and Ryan Bourne debate the relative merit of austerity, whether it succeeded, or indeed whether it was a good idea to begin with. And if indeed the UK is returning to an age of more spending, Alberto Gallo of Algebris Investments warns those funds ought to be spent wisely.
(Picture: A man holds up an anti-austerity banner outside Number 10 Downing Street on October 20, 2012 in London, England. Picture credit: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:06.8 | Coming up, austerity is dead. |
| 0:09.5 | So, so the main parties in Britain anyway. |
| 0:12.0 | But what has belt tightening meant for the UK economy over the last decade? |
| 0:16.5 | Things like the Home Office, the Department of Justice in the UK, |
| 0:20.9 | the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have endured cuts of about a quarter to a third in real terms. |
| 0:27.3 | So with Brexit looming, is it a case of spend, spend, spend? |
| 0:31.3 | The real question is, can we spend it sensibly and improve the productivity of the economy |
| 0:36.0 | and allow for us to be more competitive |
| 0:37.6 | because in reality, we're going to be in a very difficult competitive position and we should |
| 0:42.2 | really be focusing very much on how to survive in that environment. |
| 0:45.2 | That's all to come in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:51.4 | As far as economic debate goes during the current UK election campaign, |
| 0:56.6 | the leaders of the two main parties both seem to agree at least on one thing. |
| 1:01.6 | Can we have a pledge here from both of you simply is austerity over in the United Kingdom, Mr Corbyn? |
| 1:06.9 | We will end austerity. |
| 1:08.6 | I'm absolutely clear about that. |
| 1:10.0 | Yes, because it's been so on the lives of so many people. |
| 1:14.6 | Of course, and I believe in spending, investing massively in our public services because we support a dynamic wealth-creating sector. |
| 1:23.6 | Both of you gentlemen are proposing extraordinary levels of borrowing. At the last |
| 1:29.4 | election, we were told by your predecessor, Mr Johnson, that there was no magic money tree. Have you |
| 1:34.7 | found a magic money tree, Mr Johnson? And have you found perhaps more than one of them, Mr Corby? |
... |
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