Austerity bites

by Mary O'Hara

Voted one of the Guardian best books of 2014 by Owen Jones. After coming to power in May 2010, the Coalition government in the United Kingdom embarked on a drastic programme of cuts to public spending and introduced a raft of austerity measures that had profoundly damaging effects on much of the population. This bestselling book by award-winning journalist Mary O’Hara chronicles the true impact of austerity on people at the sharp end, based on her ‘real-time’ 12-month journey around the country just as the most radical reforms were being rolled out in 2012 and 2013. Drawing on hundreds of hours of compelling first-person interviews, with a broad spectrum of people ranging from homeless teenagers, older job-seekers, pensioners, charity workers, employment advisers and youth workers, as well as an extensive body of research and reports, the book explores the grim reality of living under the biggest shakeup of the welfare state in 60 years. with a new Foreword by Mark Blyth, Professor of International Political economy and International Studies at Brown University, USA, Austerity Bites dispels any notion that “we are all in this together” and offers an alternative to the dominant and simplistic narrative that we inhabit a country of “skivers versus strivers".

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Reference

336 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2014

Reviews

[Lottie Ritchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting subject matter, which is why I've given the book four stars as I accordingly enjoyed reading it very much. However the prose itself was poorly written, with many mistakes (due to it being published so soon after the period it references, I'm sure). Moreover, it purposefully took a very anecdotal approach, which on the one hand gave a close insight into the lives it discussed, but on the other hand lacked statistical detail - for instance, it says that two generations of worklessness in a family is very rare, but doesn't put a number on this. Overall a book that needed writing, but needed to be written slightly better than it was.

[✨Skye✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an entertaining read but an extremely important and enlightening one.

[Steve Gillway · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is like the CIA reports of torture. We know it is true, but somehow if it doesn't affect us directly we can get on with usual consumer frivolities. This lays out some "facts", although facts concerning poverty are always up for debate and lets the people speak for themselves. Fairly damning stuff.