Despite what the UK right will tell you, appeasing bond markets has actually led to instability | Andy Beckett

Austerity has benefitted bond traders but impoverished British society and led to the rise of populism. Is it right that we carry on adhering to their interests? Should politics always be dominated by economics? Should questions about how governments and voters pay for things – whether by earnings, taxes or borrowing – be settled before we consider the wider consequences? In an anxious capitalist democracy such as Britain, with a modern history of patchy economic success and intermittent but ...

By Andy Beckett