David Cameron and George Osborne were shameless salesmen for austerity. They might argue that it sustained their political rise. Like doctors who say that bleeding the patient will help them recover, the pair claimed that cutting back government spending would produce economic growth. What Britain suffered was more food banks, more rough sleeping, fewer police, stagnant wages and longer NHS waiting lists. How could any of this have helped prepare Britain for when the pandemic struck? Such details weren’t going to shift Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne, who from the witness stand of the Covid-19 public inquiry remain unmoved by reality.
For Mr Cameron, the former prime minister, it was 2008 all over again. Britain had not wanted to end up like Greece, he warned, which had had to cut health budgets after losing control of its national debt and its budget deficit. This is an invidious comparison. Britain, unlike Greece, controls its own currency and can always afford to pay creditors. Greece also had a much lower per capita death rate than the UK during the pandemic. That might have been because, as experts suggested, of the widening health inequalities under Mr Cameron’s watch. These scientists, he averred, had got this wrong.
