“The austerity period that started in 2010 was a first-year undergraduate mistake.”
That’s the view of Oxford economics professor Simon Wren-Lewis in the first of a new podcast strand from Under The Flyover, The Andrew Fisher Interview, available exclusively to paying subscribers of Inside Croydon.
Each month, our star columnist will be talking to national and international figures about the issues that affect day-to-day life in Croydon.
It will offer in-depth and informed views on the things that matter to you.
This month, with the new government’s Budget at the end of October, Andrew provides the questions in a talk with Simon Wren-Lewis, professor of economics at Oxford University and a former senior official at HM Treasury.
The professor is someone who does actually know what he is talking about.
Under The Flyover is in effect providing our subscribers with a personal seminar on economics, to better understand some of the options facing Chancellor Rachel Reeves as she prepares the first Labour Budget in 15 years.
No more austerity?: but what does Chancellor Rachel Reeves mean when she says that
Wren-Lewis describes much of the public discourse – including by politicians and journalists – around economics as “an expert-free zone”.
In this Andrew Fisher Interview, Prof Wren-Lewis talks of the need for spending to keep the national economy in balance. “Things are very bad,” he says.
“The dire state of public services is hitting the economy,” the professor says. Prof Wren-Lewis also explains the impact of Brexit on the UK economy, and how Reeves’ promise of “no more austerity” might only mean “no more cuts”, but not provide the vital investments necessary.
Sit back, listen in and maybe even make some notes – it’s the sort of detailed and thoughtful discussion of Budget issues that you won’t find anywhere else. Unless, of course, you are an Oxford undergraduate in one of the professor’s seminars…
The Andrew Fisher Interview is premium content, exclusively available to subscribers who support Inside Croydon’s local and independent journalism.
It’s available now via Patreon and on Inside Croydon’s all-singing, all-dancing Spotify page, but only if you subscribe to support this website’s journalism.
And if you want to find out more about economics from someone who knows what they are writing about, Prof Wren-Lewis’s own blog, Mainly Macro, can be found by clicking here. As you might expect, it has lots of interesting thoughts on the upcoming Budget.
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A sincere thank you to Andrew Fisher and Professor Simon Wren-Lewis. Interview content like this might finally push me to subscribe to IC (despite my own less-than-ideal financial circumstances).
As staunchly anti-Brexit and anti-Johnson as I am, I do despair when I hear so many self-identifying progressives or ‘centrists’ point to 2016 political populism as the initial turning point for Britain’s terminal decline, whilst ignoring the significant part played by Cameron and Osborne’s austerity agenda; an agenda which, far from placing us ‘all in this together,’ clearly hit the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest (especially the disabled, and those who relied on essential services like women’s shelters, post-16 employment support and regularly available public libraries, whilst leading to exponentially greater homeless numbers and public reliance on food banks, all of which has been very evident in Croydon since 2010), and which, in turn, pushed so many desperate voters to desperate ‘solutions’ (like Brexit).
And, so, I hope our present government learns the lessons of 2010 as assidiously as it, quite rightly, resolves to avoid the mistakes of 2016.
So Mathew, if you don’t have a subscription, how did you get to listen in on this paid-for content??
I haven’t (yet).
I’ve heard Andrew speak before, and I very much like his IC articles. Admittedly, I’m less familiar with Professor Simon Wren-Lewis, but, based on the above article, I’ll keep a keen eye on his work.
At this moment, I’m simply thanking Andrew and Simon for at least having the right type of conversations, and, whilst I’ve yet to hear this discussion, I assume I’m not being premature in praising them.
Trust me, if and when I do listen to any IC podcasts/premium content, I’ll do it the right way (by subscribing to IC and helping to financially support the work you do here).
Gold star response.
Give it a listen. It’s as good as you might hope (though we would say that…).