British Economy Worse Than Great Depression

This chart is from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a British think tank:

The yellow line for the period 1930-34 should be compared to the black line of the current Second Great Depression. Sixty months out from the beginning of the contraction, Britain's economy is still not recovered. During the First Great Depression, Great Britain recovered its previous peak in four years. Austerians not only made glaring mathematical mistakes in theory, but their polices as applied in the real world are in one word, a bust. Yet the Tory government refuses to back off on the myth of expansionary austerity. Its austerity measures are clearly prolonging the suffering of Britons, like a medieval doctor bleeding his dying patient. The country narrowly missed a triple dip recession this year thanks in part to tiny growth in public sector spending

In Stockport near Manchester so many homeless people are seeking shelter that Eastern European immigrants have begun sleeping in sandstone caves dugout in the 17th century. The warren is perched on a 20ft precipice over the Mersey. There has been a 42% increase in homelessness in the Manchester area. Austerity was supposed to spark economic growth and reduce deficits; it has done neither:

Britain does not have a debt crises because its borrowing costs are at historic lows.  It does have an unemployment and growth problem [chart below]. The IMF says that fiscal austerity reduces incomes and raises unemployment for about five years after the policy is instigated. Five years of Tory economic policy has achieved one thing: the dismembering of Great Britain's social welfare state. For Tories that may not be a bad thing because admitting their economic mismanagement would be political suicide.