"We must pay off the debt" "We have to balance the books" "We should have fixed the roof when the sun was shining" The same message has been trotted out time and again by economists and politicians from all parties: Only by cutting public spending can we hope to return to economic growth. But what is clear from the experience of 2010-15 is that austerity has failed to deliver. In 2010, the coalition government inherited a public debt of 0.76 trillion. By 2015, despite savage austerity cuts and an assault on social security, they managed to raise the public debt to 1.36 trillion. The new Tory government will argue that the failure is because we did not have enough austerity. We did not have enough public spending cuts. We shall soon find out what full blown austerity cuts can do to an economy What if they are wrong? What if austerity causes recession? The early cuts triggered a recession, and economic growth has been anaemic ever since. What if these are the direct consequence of a misguided policy of austerity? In this essential guide to Austerity, Tim Watkins explains how politicians' fundamental misunderstanding of the way money is created has brought about the conditions for the biggest economic crash in human history... and why we should all be worried."