Is austerity over?
Take a walk around Newcastle city centre and the huge increase in rough sleepers and homelessness is palpable. And Newcastle West End foodbank, which opened in March 2013, has grown to be the largest foodbank in the UK, feeding more than 40,000 people last year in one of the most economically and socially deprived areas in the North East Writes Tony Dowling for People's Assembly - North East

The Tory Chancellor’s latest Budget has not ended austerity, although the Tory press and the BBC will probably repeat the propaganda tricks from Conservative Party HQ claiming ‘it is coming to an end’.  
The reality is the Tories have presided over the longest falling in living standards since Victorian times. Even Hammond forecasts only miserably low growth over the next 5 years. This Budget does nothing fundamental to reverse that.

The imposition of austerity measures as a neoliberal response to the crisis of 2008 has had multiple effects, not least upon the industrial north, which was already reeling from the effects of Thatcherism, in particular due to the loss of its industrial base Writes Martin Hall from Manchester People's Assembly

The magnificent Glasgow women's strike has witnessed picket line scenes that we haven't seen for many years.
The 8,000 care, school, and catering workers, members of the GMB and Unison, have marched, protested and picketed in huge numbers, numbers which clearly exceed the limits placed on unions by the Tory anti-union laws.

Austerity has hit Doncaster hard. When the 2008 crash hit Doncaster was already in a critical condition. Manufacturing jobs had largely disappeared and the Blair-Brown years had seen the imposition of a mayoral system to ‘fast-track change’. That ominous phrase had meant cuts and privatisations to such an extent that this solid Labour town voted for an English Democrat mayor. In 2008 Doncaster needed social investment, we got austerity.. Writes Mick Wattam from Doncaster People's Assembly

Eight years of Austerity has hit the small town of Burton-Upon-Trent hard with more people now feeling its effects in a town where mainstream politics can sometimes feel like it’s passed us by Writes William Walker - Secretary East Staffordshire Trades Union Council 

The Tories and the mainstream media are busy trumpeting the good news: a record increase in wages. Yes, wages jumped 3.1 percent in the three months to August, the 'highest rate since the financial crash' crowed the Financial Times.
The news was so uplifting that the value of sterling rose as a result.
But don't go ordering the Prosecco just yet... Writes John Rees