Niall Ferguson Goes to Bat for Cameron, Osborne, and Austerity

I see that Niall Ferguson is again pushing the case that the austerity pursued by the Cameron government in 2010 was both necessary and good. This can be a useful opportunity to show why the history since the Conservatives took power does not support this claim, even though they managed to get re-elected.

To quickly summarize Ferguson’s case, he argues that the turn to austerity was a matter of necessity, not choice. The U.K. had a high and rising debt burden. Furthermore, inflation was incre...