The Bylines Cymru community has debated when austerity actually began in the UK. In 2008? During the Thatcher era that planted the seeds of feral ‘neoliberalism’? For the purposes of our February-long Austerity Project, we’ll start from its formal 2010 introduction by Prime Minister David Cameron, his Chancellor George Osborne, and their coalition with Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats. The outcomes of their programme continue to resound through lives and communities today, every day.
We’re going to publish ‘head’ pieces, looking at histories, data, public service changes, and other more quantitative information – that has an important role to play. But we feel and know it’s essential that this project looks at the ‘heart’ of the matter: the granular daily and long-term impacts on individuals, families, communities, and their futures. You can help with that.
The Austerity Project
We’re a community of volunteers who care, contributing our voices to a non-profit public interest platform that’s one of 10 in the UK’s Bylines Network. Every day this month we’ll publish an article or other output by our writers, contributing artists, and others – all of whom have experienced austerity directly to some extent.
In the traditional ‘news’ model, it’s too often a contextless snapshot of an event in space and time that’s quickly moved on from and forgotten. We want to start ongoing conversations that last beyond this month, to understand and give recognition to what has happened due to austerity. People may even be able to offer alternatives, solutions, or at least informed ideas about where we go from here as a society.
Though Bylines Cymru and its community are very much rooted in Wales and Welshness, austerity has of course been a UK-wide force over the last 15 years. If austerity is something you feel strongly about one way or another, there are many ways to get involved and speak your truth, wherever you stand on a political, social, or economic spectrum. You don’t have to be Welsh to have your say here.
How to get involved
- Submit articles of 600 to 1200 words. We can also republish ‘evergreen’ articles to reach a wider and newer audience. Though our readers are based in Wales and elsewhere in the UK, we also have a global readership, especially (we’re unsure why) in Norway. Takk, Norge!
- If you’re in, of, or in love with Wales, join the Bylines Cymru community of volunteers. It’s as simple as emailing me at editor@bylines.cymru. This can include free coaching for inexperienced or less confident writers.
- Use the same address to say, more briefly than in an article, how austerity has impacted you and/or people and places you love. We can share these testimonials in various ways, anonymously if you prefer.
- There are some fantastic artists and photographers contributing their work with kind permission, such as Mick ‘Plebo’ Scott, Martin Shakeshaft, Cold War Steve, and Martin Rowson, but we’d love to hear from more.
- Check out our Austerity Audit if you’re interested in the body of research around its impacts. This is slowly but surely being updated when we come across new sources. Let us know if we missed one.
- Watch for us across social media and visit Bylines Cymru to see our articles and other media for this project. On Tuesdays we’ll pose a question to spark wider conversations.
And, of course, spread the word. Sadly, you’re bound to know people who’ve been impacted by austerity, who are still caught up in it personally or professionally. And many who believe that current Labour governments are still ‘doing’ austerity, when the party said it wouldn’t.
We’d love for those people to see what our community members are saying, and add their own tuppence-worth. Outreach could include letting your MP and other representatives know we’re putting austerity firmly on the agenda.
We will remember them
“Our country has become poor and unhealthy, where a few rich, healthy people live.”
Michael Marmot, IHE
This project is a great vehicle for building our community, and starting discussions about a society-shaking programme that never really had a mandate. Everyone involved will have their own reasons for wanting to be.
For me, above all, it’s about the deaths. Even people who care deeply about austerity making life worse and harder rarely mention them.
Research by the International Inequalities Institute, King’s College London, and LSE says austerity spending cuts by successive governments led to the average person losing almost six months of life expectancy from 2010–2019 – women two more months than men. “The North East of England, the East Midlands, South Wales, and the Glasgow City Region were among the hardest hit.”
Other research from the Institute of Health Equity (IHE) at University College London calculated excess deaths using the 10% of wealthiest areas as a baseline. In the peak years of austerity (2011–2019), 1,062,334 people died earlier than if they’d lived in those areas. The deaths were attributed to health inequalities, 148,000 directly due to austerity measures.
Glasgow Centre for Population Health and University of Glasgow research attributed 335,000 excess deaths to “the austerity policies pursued by the UK government since 2010 … the main cause of the decline in the rate at which life expectancy has increased”.
1,062,334 souls. Compare that to those lost in world war two at home and abroad: 454,000. But there’s no annual poppython for austerity deaths, no wall of hearts, no ‘Portraits of Grief’.
We will remember them, as best we can. I dedicate this Austerity Project to them, and to those who survive but in unsupported despair and destitution.
