For the last five years, Britain has been under the hammer of 'Austerity'. In its name, wages have been frozen, benefits have been slashed and public spending squeezed. The pain of a financial crisis caused by bankers and speculators has been borne by ordinary people all over the country - and by the poor and disabled most of all. Yet this has not been born of necessity, argues Kerry-anne Mendoza, better known as the blogger Scriptonite. Rather, it has been an opportunity seized upon by neoliberals to pursue their decades-long project to shrink government and privatise resources.
