Lincslass
Think I remember the austerity drive was EU led
www.bbc.co.uk/news/10162176
The austerity drive within the eurozone was driven by the dominance of Germanic economic ideology, which demanded 'balanced' budgets and cuts in state spending.
As the UK was not in the eurozone it was at liberty to run its economy in whatever way it pleased. The German model appealed to the tories because it enabled them to justify huge cuts in state spending, to 'shrink the state', which has always been a tory objective from Thatcher onwards.
However, there are multiple economic theories about managing national economies; there is nothing particularly 'correct' about the 'austerity' model. It did, in fact, delay the UK's recovery from the depression caused by the Global financial Crisis. The economy was showing good signs of recovery prior to 201o when the Conservative/LibDem coalition came to power. This has been acknowledged by the IMF (just in case you think I'm making it up).
The most effective way to recover from a depression is for governments to spend in order to keep money circulating in the day to day economy and so stimulate business growth. This was demonstrated in the US in the 1930s when Roosevelt's 'New Deal' programme of government investment helped the US to recover faster from the 'Great Depression' than did other western countries. In the UK postwar recovery was similarly helped by ambitious government spending, as well as the US loan, particularly on the newly established NHS, infrastructure and house building programmes. Not such a good recovery as we also squandered money on trying to retain the Empire ..
We are in for another bout of ideology driven austerity, swingeing cuts to day to day public spending (which the government hopes will be masked by 'levelling up' money) all in the name of 'paying back' the money 'borrowed' to tide us over the covid crisis. Money that was, in fact, 'created' by the Bank of England and which we owe to no-one.
