In the wake of the 2008 financial crash, an economic crisis incubated and caused by a reckless and out of control banking system transformed into a drive for full-blown public austerity. And we continue to witness the consequences of it today.
But Brits didn’t suddenly wake up one day and decide we needed an austerity drive to cut public spending. So where did the idea come from? Academic Mike Berry studied how the media responded to the 2008 financial crisis, and found that a narrative about ‘public sector waste’ had been building for years, and reached a crescendo in 2009.
Berry’s research found a 600% rise in mostly negative media stories between 2000 and 2009 that was crucial to what he calls the “socialisation of support for austerity”. He notes how words and phrases like “inefficiency”, “waste”, “non-jobs”, “bloated”, “gold-plated pensions”, “benefit cheat”, “skiver” and “scrounger” became ever more
— source neweconomics.org | Paul Hebden | 28 Feb 2023