COMMENT: So austerity has caused 120,000 deaths and counting? Well that’s the economy, stupid

Death and taxes.

So the Conservatives have been accused of “economic murder” after their austerity policies were linked to 120,000 deaths in a study published in the Marxist rag the British Medical Journal. The study suggests that during the first four years of austerity, in which cuts were made to public services, an extra 45,000 deaths were recorded than would have been if funding had stayed at previous levels. This figure, given that austerity policies are still in effect today, would currently stand at 120,000, and could rise to as much as 200,000 excess deaths by 2020. https://twitter.com/LondonEconomic/status/931169028105756673 120,000 deaths is unfortunate, let’s be clear here. But we must look at the bigger picture: balancing the budget. As we know, the economy was left in such a state in 2010 after the Labour Party and ordinary working people caused the global financial crisis a decade ago. That meant the Conservatives, coming into power in 2010 with a coalition government, had no choice but to instigate an ideological and systemic shrinking of the state by cutting services to the bone. It is, therefore, fair to ask: who is to blame for 120,000 unnecessary deaths? The party that caused them, or someone else? https://twitter.com/TheSatireParty/status/933409829481312258   The then-chancellor George Osborne set himself the goal of balancing the budget by 2015. He was to do this by cutting the excess spending that categorised the Blair and Brown years. We, the public, were asked to pull up our bootstraps and tighten our purse strings. Times would be tough, but we were all in it together. Just five short years of austerity – the length of a single term in government – and we’d be in the black. The revised goal currently 2031. https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/933398952891863041 The fact that the Conservatives missed their goal wasn’t because austerity is inherently flawed, or because they mismanaged the economy, but because they didn’t realise how much of a mess Labour had left the economy in, probably. Granted, the UK’s credit rating has been downgraded, and the deficit is still increasing, but imagine how much worse it would have been under a Labour government. And anyway, who are these 120,000 people who died because of austerity? For all we know, they could have caused the global financial crash, or be shirkers rather than strivers. We’re all in it together, remember? Politicians are suffering too. Perhaps the figure is a typo. If politicians had genuinely caused 120,000 deaths, they’d be behind bars. Our politicians are still in power, so must not have caused them. I have faith in our system that wanton destruction of lives for ideological means would lead to the perpetrators being brought to justice, so it can’t be that. If the figure is indeed accurate, then we must persevere with austerity policies otherwise they would have died in vain, and also it would be embarrassing for politicians to admit their policies were wrong. Some might call 120,000 deaths a tragedy. I say: but the economy. https://twitter.com/mrjamesob/status/933405187821260800