You wouldn't see those cuts in place until the 2012 budget year.
Your claim was that it cut spending by 2011. It didn't, spending was still declining then. It cut very modesly in 2012, and by 2013 was back above 2011 or any previous year. All while running a huge budge deficit. Nothing austere about any of that.
What? You made the claim with your chart. Again, Cameron didn't get elected til 2010.......he couldn't cut the budget for 2011 but started implementing his austerity plan in 2012. Here he is speaking eloquently in late 2013 about his austerity plan:
His remarks were in part aimed at the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, sitting alongside him. Welby had previously raised concerns about the social impact of cuts to welfare benefits.
“At a time when family budgets are tight, it is really worth remembering that this spending [on benefits] comes out of the pockets of the same taxpayers whose living standards we want to see improve. I hope the Archbishop of Canterbury will forgive me for saying—it’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul, but rather robbing Peter to pay Peter,” said Cameron.
The biggest threat facing Britain “is if our budget deficit and debts get out of control again… We have a plan—and we are carefully implementing that plan.”
Stating that the slashing of public spending under the coalition had already “cut the deficit by a third,” he said there was more to come. “But that doesn’t just mean making difficult decisions on public spending. It also means something more profound. It means building a leaner, more efficient state. We need to do more with less. Not just now, but permanently.”
Citing some of the massive job cuts and privatisations underway Cameron lauded a “leaner, more efficient, more affordable state… There are 40 percent fewer people working in the Department for Education—but over 3,000 more free schools and academies, with more children doing tougher subjects than ever before. There are 23,000 fewer administrative roles in the NHS—but 5,000 more doctors, with shorter waiting times.”
The implications of Cameron’s remarks are chilling. The NHS budget is being slashed by £20 billion by 2015, around one-fifth of its annual budget. Calls are now being made to increase this to £30 billion. This is being accompanied by speeding up privatisation with the introduction of the Health and Social Care Act of 2012.
On the same day Cameron spoke, the Royal College of Nurses revealed that NHS cuts were jeopardising patient safety. The RCN said that there was now a shortage of some 20,000 nurses in the health service, with inadequate staffing a common factor in especially high mortality rates in certain hospitals.
Similarly state education is being eroded and privatised with the widespread introduction of academies and free schools. Teachers are currently under a three-year wage freeze and cuts in pension rights have resulted in an estimated 12 percent fall in their pay.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/11/14/came-n13.html
There have been riots and public protests in the UK for the past 3 years. The UK thinks it finally came out of recession in the 4th quarter of last year but recovery is extremely tentative. Austerity has not worked.
In 2008 Italy's budget was over 800 billion Euros; by 2011, it had dropped to 788 billion Euros.
So $12 bil Euros is your horribly damaging austerity? What a laugh. That's essentially flat. And it was after a huge increase, was a fairly high percentage of GDP, and was after a huge increase (under 615billion Euros for 2004)
Also your data may be off.
Billions of Euros
2004 664.3
2005 688.25
2006 723.38
2007 740.27
2008 765.54
2009 788.36
2010 784.47
2011 788.74
2012 797.76
statista.com 
So again only a drop from the previous peak for one year, and a very modest drop of 3.89 billion euros.
No austerity in that trend.
Look at the damn chart. According to the chart, Italy's budget was over 800 bil. euros in 2008. If the chart is wrong, why did you post it?
What some of the European countries did do, was increase taxes, and they called that austerity, but that term is hardly a good description of taking more of other people's money so you can spend it.
No, that's incorrect. Most euro countries cut their budgets because conservatives were in power. This led to deprivation and unrest, and has resulted in extremist parties winning major victories in the latest round of EU elections. Only recently, have EU leaders started to talk about spending more because of the growing unrest and ongoing recession. |
