I posted a years ago about how austerity was an outcome of the misuse of Excel for problems of scale that it wasn't designed for. Once some researchers figured out the problem with the spreadsheet that these governments were using, almost all stopped with austerity policies, but the UK didn't.

I posted that there would likely be one of two outcomes - a lost decade, we'd be in a worse position and no one should ever again think that the Conservatives are economic masters compared to Labour again, or that George Osborne was a bona fide economic genius and the UK would come out of this extended austerity in a fitter and leaner state ready for the challenges ahead (ala early Thatcherism).

The answer is the the first one - we had the lost decade, are looking at potential second lost decade and we're now equivalent to a central European country not France.

The Conservatives deserve to die at the next general election for this and should be replaced by a completely new right of centre political party as the opposition.