A series of poems documenting the effects of the UK government’s austerity programme.
Austerity uses found texts – media reports, coroner’s reports, police reports, and so on – to create poems depicting the consequences and effects of the British Conservative government’s programme of austerity.
Read the poems Read more about this project Read more about the UK austerity programme
Picture credit: People’s Assembly Against Austerity
The poems
-
00 out of sight of the road
The tarpaulin was covered in logs and stones. Pulled back it revealed a pony six months old weak, barely alive, terrified out of sight of the road his front legs strapped together. Too weak to move it himself his head was twisted around over his back where it had flopped as he was dragged across…
-
01 she was not ill enough
She died of a lung condition. Her husband agreed the life support machine be turned off. The same day the Department declared she was not ill enough to receive benefits. [Daily Mirror, 08/01/2016, Dead mum not ill enough for payouts]
-
02 across a table
He had been detained on a locked ward; schizophrenia; complex drug problems. The day of the assessment he was heavily medicated, was experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations. He thought he had special powers, believed he was the Son of God. His benefits were stopped immediately. He had been deemed fit for work on the basis…
-
03 complicated jargon, red
She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer: major surgery chemo sickness hair loss complicated jargon, red tape. As well as working her husband cared for her. ‘Having chemotherapy makes you see everything through a mist.’ One day she came downstairs to discover her husband lying on the living room floor dead.
-
04 I don’t want people mourning me before I die
She works 20 hours a week as an employment advisor take-home pay less than 10,000 a year. But with 400 a month in welfare payments she is able to live alone work and pay for a specially modified car. She pays for carers to come in twice a day to prepare meals, twice-weekly visits to…
-
05 he didn’t know how he was going to live
No witnesses gave evidence at the inquest, only the coroner read out written statements from the man’s doctor, the first paramedic to attend him after he collapsed, a police sergeant who investigated his death, the pathologist who carried out his post-mortem. The day he died he was awaiting the results of an appeal against being…
-
06 see a doctor
He was sent to his first assessment when he gave up his job as a delivery man after being referred for tests on his heart. His wife was with him: ‘She checked him out. She did his blood pressure and his heart, said “See a doctor as soon as possible.”’ He was diagnosed with heart…
-
07 the decision-maker
The coroner concluded at the end of the inquest: ‘The anxiety and depression were long term problems but the intense anxiety was caused by his recent assessment by the Department as being fit for work and his view of the likely consequences.’ A former orthopaedic surgeon employed by the contractor had carried out the assessment,
-
08 the same company
She was thrilled when she got work at a council children’s centre but a routine health check by a company contracted by the council and the Department found she was not fit for work. She was recovering from a five-year battle with anorexia. ‘It would be inappropriate to be offered employment in this role.’ Strapped…
-
09 knocked down
Knocked down by a car, his right leg was shattered. 17 days in hospital, numerous operations. He could put no weight at all on that leg after the accident, instead relied on crutches. When he applied for support on the basis that he was unable or virtually unable to walk,
About this project
Austerity is a series of poems documenting the effects of the UK government’s austerity programme.
The project uses found texts – media reports, coroner’s reports, police reports, and so on – to create poems depicting the consequences and effects of the British Conservative government’s programme of austerity.
All the poems are accompanied by a link to their source/s, wherever available – in the event that the source isn’t available online, a full reference is given including date, headline/title and publisher.
About the austerity programme
The UK entered the age of austerity under the Conservative-led coalition government in 2010.
Austerity is a fiscal policy prioritising sustained reductions in public spending, with the intention of minimising the role of the welfare state and reducing the budget deficit – which had ballooned in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
The effects of austerity have been widely documented. Reductions in welfare support, the cancellation of school building programmes, reduction in local authority funding and an increase in VAT, reduction in arts funding, the closure of libraries, reduced funding to museums, an increased usage of food banks, more children living in poverty and a surge in crime rates including robbery and murder, among others.
Get in touch
If you have a suggestion of a source that could be used in the project, you can submit it using the form here.