Osborne has accidentally exposed how ridiculous his austerity cuts were through his post-Brexit Budget threats | Voices | The Independent

Osborne has accidentally exposed how ridiculous his austerity cuts were through his post-Brexit Budget threats | Voices | The Independent

For the last six years, George Osborne has been insisting that in order to tackle the UK’s current account deficit (the annual difference between what the country earns, and what it spends) and reduce the national debt, there was only one option: to cut public sector spending via austerity. And of course, most of those austerity cuts were enacted on the poor, many of which came out of the benefits system. Meanwhile, the richest and the oldest members of society got off pretty much scot-free – because Osborne claimed there was no use in raising the top rate of tax, since rich people would find a way of avoiding paying for it anyway.

At the other end of the political spectrum, we find Yanis Varoufakis, who labels Osborne’s cuts ideological “class war.”

Osborne’s steadfast belief in cutting public spending has formed the basis of the Tories’ so-called “long term economic plan”, repeated ad nauseum in the media in the lead-up to the 2015 General Election.