The outrage of austerity
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comment and opinion
In this blog, David Walsh and Gerry McCartney discuss the disastrous effects that austerity policies have had on life expectancy - exacerbating health inequalities and causing many people in our most vulnerable communities to lead shorter, less healthy lives.
With evidence from their recent book, they call for us to use the power within our communities to demand that austerity policies are reversed and take action for a healthier future for everyone.
In a recent CHEX article, SCDC Director Susan Paxton asked a very relevant question; a question of our times: “Where’s the outrage?”. She was questioning the lack of widespread reaction, or any kind of indignant public response, to the sheer scale of health inequalities in Scotland.
There is a distinct absence of outrage that in a supremely wealthy society, huge numbers of our fellow citizens – the least well-off – on average only live in good health until their 40s. In contrast, the better-off stay in good health for, again on average, an extra 25 years. Astonishing, demoralising, scandalous statistics. Where indeed is the outrage?
Perhaps we’re all outraged out. Looking around at, well, everything, there is a lot to be outraged about. Or, perhaps, we need to better inform and better nurture our outrage, by really understanding not just how this has happened, but how it has been allowed to happen – and by whom.
Societal regress and shorter lives
Health inequalities are not a new story. It would need a very long blog indeed to detail their political and economic genesis and long-term evolution. But what has happened to health inequalities in the past 15 years is a new story. And one that is as equally outrageous as it is horrific.
In rich countries, life expectancy goes up over time and deaths rates go down. And until the early 2010s, that’s exactly what had happened in Scotland (and the rest of the UK) for well over a century. The only exceptions to this general rule were indeed exceptional times: the years covering two world wars, and the Spanish ‘flu pandemic of 1918-20.
And people living longer is a reflection of broader societal progress. Over the course of the twentieth century, that year-on-year improvement was shaped by better housing and working conditions, protection from infectious diseases through vaccination programmes, medical advances, the establishment of the welfare state, and lots more. Societal progress; longer lives.
Astonishingly, in the early 2010s this all stopped. In the poorer parts of all four nations of the UK, people stopped living longer; they started dying younger. A reversal of more than a century’s improvement. Societal regress; shorter lives.
The disastrous consequences of needless political choices
The evidence shows very clearly that this was principally the result of UK government policies, namely the UK Government’s ‘austerity’ programme started in 2010. This is best understood as cuts to government funding on a massive scale. On an outrageous scale. Vital local services that people depend on for support were slashed.
The ‘safety net’ of social security, already threadbare in comparison to other European countries, was pulled apart. And those affected the most were those who needed help the most: low-income families with children; struggling single parents; disabled people.
So, how big does a statistic need to be to cause outrage? How about tens of billions of pounds cut from the annual social security bill (bearing in mind that many millions of people in the UK depend on social security for their survival)? How about cuts of around £90 billion each year to overall public spending? How about half a trillion pounds cut between 2010 and 2019?
Not outraged yet? Perhaps understanding the consequences of these cuts will help. How about massively increased child poverty across all parts of the UK? How about eleven million people in the UK being classed as “food insecure” ? How about a 3,600% increase the number of food banks between 2010 and 2019? How about the fact that food banks exist at all in the UK – they didn’t really used to. It used to be the case that, in part due to the aforementioned safety net, people didn’t routinely go hungry on a massive scale.
Or, in what surely has to be the ultimate, most disastrous consequence of needless political choices, how about people dying? By 2019 a lot more people in the UK had died from the consequences of austerity policies than would die from the Covid-19 pandemic. Surely we are now, finally, approaching outrage?
How has this been allowed to happen in a so-called civilised society?
This is one of the key questions asked in our new book, which presents all the evidence of what has happened, interspersed with real-life stories of people affected by the UK’s policies of austerity.
The book discusses the roles of myth and denial in facilitating these policies: the myths of what economic policies were required following the financial crash of 2007/08, and the denial from different individuals and organisations with power and influence of the devastating role that austerity was having on death rates up and down the country. Denial that allowed the UK government to continue with its harmful policies.
At this point, it is simply not enough to be outraged. We also need to be active. To be motivated by shared anger to organise, campaign and protest. We hope that the evidence we have collated can help inform and drive community organisations to action.
After all, the austerity policies introduced since 2010 are almost entirely still in place. Not one of the hundreds of ‘welfare reforms’ made since 2010 has been reversed by those now in power in Westminster. Worse, that new Labour Government continues to talk of future spending and social security cuts to come. In the face of all the evidence, this cannot be allowed to happen.
For society’s sake, we need to reverse these cuts, not add more. We need to use the power within our communities – our collective voice – to demand that austerity policies are reversed.
Let’s use our voice to let them know how outraged we are.
Social Murder? Austerity and Life Expectancy in the UK by David Walsh and Gerry McCartney is published by Bristol Policy Press. All royalties go to NHS charities, and not to the authors.