Austerity Britain: Back to the Future

Abstract

It would not be controversial to observe that the global financial downturn and its immediate impact in Britain inaugurated a shift in popular perceptions of personal (in)security and financial prospects. For many Britons, the hegemonic mantle of British economic prosperity which had shielded the nation for much of the previous decade became increasingly threadbare and finally shabby. From 2008 the recession and the threat of recession were a constant in news and current affairs as politicians, economists and pundits sought to explain fresh surges in unemployment, tighter squeezes to family budgets, government spending reviews, a crisis in the Eurozone and the mill-stone of negative equity formortgage holders. Perhaps it is a truism to say that, in times of national adversity such as this, public culture turns to its own national history for guidance and for strength.