Austerity is just another word for the Government killing people

For 12 years, Tory rule has been Britain’s acid bath. Today, we’re stripped to the bone, facing a return to austerity, amid a cost of living crisis that’s terrorising the population. And to think, only a week ago right-wing newspapers – accomplices and cheerleaders to Britain’s destruction – were denouncing Nicola Sturgeon for "detesting" the Tories. For pity’s sake, the Tories have ruined Britain, and they’re about to take millions down with them. Even they must hate themselves. Detesting a political party which sticks a knife through your country’s heart is the only moral position possible.

What the Tories are about to do next will cost lives. So detest them with everything you’ve got. They’re about to stick the knife not just into Britain but into you and your family, with Austerity Mark II. Let’s be clear: austerity is just another word for the Government killing people.

Just recently, Glasgow University and the Glasgow Centre for Population Health released findings revealing hundreds of thousands of excess deaths were down to Tory austerity. People died “younger as a result of austerity”, with those “living in the poorest areas hardest hit”. The study was published in the BMJ’s Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Researchers found 335,000 excess deaths “across Scotland, England and Wales” between 2012-19. “Improving mortality trends changed,” it said, “following the implementation of austerity policies”.

Death rates for women in England’s poorest areas increased by around 3% “after having declined by around 14% in the previous decade”.

Rates of premature death for both sexes in Scotland’s poorest areas “increased by 6-7% … after previous decreases of 10-20%”.

Glasgow University said: “The study adds to the growing evidence of the profound and deeply concerning changes to mortality trends observed as a result of UK Government economic ‘austerity’ policies. These have slashed billions of pounds from our public services and social security system with devastating impacts. Without support, people have been swept up by a rising tide of poverty and dragged under by decreased income, poor housing, poor nutrition, poor health and social isolation – ultimately leading to premature death, now quantified by this new study.” Strong stuff for academics.

Lead author, Dr David Walsh, added: “These figures are not only shocking but shameful … We must remember that these are more than just statistics: they represent hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been cut short … The tragic thing is that these deaths did not have to happen. In the words of the United Nations, in a society as wealthy as the UK ‘poverty is a political choice’.”

Co-author Professor Gerry McCartney implored Tories to “learn from the devastating effects that cuts to social security and vital services have had on the health of the population”. Fellow co-author Professor Ruth Dundas added with devastating clarity: “The study shows that in the UK a great many more deaths are likely to have been caused by UK Government economic policy than by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

The Tories are more deadly than Covid. Let that sink in. Here’s another fact worth contemplating: we’re experiencing the longest, hardest pay squeeze since the Napoleonic era. Austerity devastated Britain. The country had no time to recover. Now we face another round which will trample the nation to dust.

The Tories gave us austerity, then poured molten metal into the wound with Brexit, lying that they’d lead us to “sunlit uplands”. Boris Johnson arrived with lies of "levelling up". Then came craven Liz Truss, crashing the economy so badly she now sits in the corner, dunce’s cap on head, as Jeremy Hunt plots austerity as the solution.

Johnson won a clear mandate – albeit built on lies – by promising to lift up Britain’s poorest areas. Truss has no mandate, yet her policies deliberately planned to overturn everything Johnson claimed to stand for: her agenda openly favoured the rich over the poor. But there’ll be no General Election. The public is simply expected to submit to the Tory whip, and watch democracy choked as surely as the economy.

It’s tantamount to criminality: an assault on Britain by the British government. Tories even raised the spectre of cannibalising one of their core voter blocks, OAPs, by abandoning the pension triple lock - seemingly happy to add granny and grandpa to the list of those marked for an earlier death than necessary. Threatening pensions, though, prompted even the dog-loyal Daily Express to bark on its front page: ‘Don’t dare go back on the pension triple lock’. So, inevitably – pointlessly, stupidly –Truss was forced to backtrack on an idea the party didn’t even need to float in the first place.

Amid this, Tories descended further into chaos, hate and extremism. Before her resignation yesterday multiplied the mayhem, Suella Braverman pushed through a last-minute amendment to an already draconian anti-protest bill – allowing government to apply for injunctions against anyone deemed “likely” to carry out protests which could cause “serious disruption” to “national infrastructure”.

Breaching any injunction would mean arrest. There are concerns that measures in the anti-protest bill could undermine industrial action. Amnesty said moves to ban individuals attending protests “go further” than similar Russian legislation. Police will also be handed powers to stop and search people and cars even if there are no “reasonable grounds”.

Prior to resigning, Braverman – another Kwartengesque has-been, as pathetic as our powerless PM is useless - defended the indefensible by raving, like some sixth form extremist, about “the coalition of chaos … the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati … the anti-growth coalition”.

As for any chaotic “anti-growth coalition”, there’s only one group that fits that definition: the Tories, the party that’s ruined Britain and is now going to make the people pay – some with their lives – for their treacherous failures.

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