• “It’s an attack on who we are. The whole fabric of society is breaking down.”
Eight years of budget cutting have refashioned British society, making it less like the rest of Western Europe and more like the United States. In a series of articles, The Times will chronicle how a shrinking welfare state and spreading poverty are changing the fabric of life in Britain.
The manifestations of austerity are omnipresent in a country with a storied history of public largess: closed libraries, public swimming pools and cuts in benefits.
Above, Emma Wilde, a Liverpool resident, has struggled after losing the welfare benefits she depended on to support herself and her two children.
