Night Waves - A New Age of Austerity?

Amidst recession, economic change and general belt tightening, Philip Dodd presents a special edition of Night Waves on a coming idea in British culture - Austerity. David Cameron recently declared the Conservatives to be the party of austerity and Philip interviews Ed Vaizey on what this means to him as shadow minister for culture. A panel of guests also discuss what a more austere Britain might look like. Cultural historian Christopher Frayling talks about the aesthetics of austerity in film and popular culture, how scarcity can make the arts a locus of escapist fantasy rather than gritty realism, and author and banker Oliver Kamm explains just how much of a structural change our economic lives are about to undergo Historian Dominic Sandbrook examines the British puritanical tradition of simple virtue and how previous eras of post-war austerity have been incorporated into our national story. Should the coming years be seen as a necessary corrective after a period of greed and excess or simply the next stage in Britain's long post war decline? And Classicist Catherine Edwards looks at the even deeper roots of Austerity in Stoic philosophy and Roman ideas of virtue that still reverberate today. The panel is also be joined by Scottish poet Robert Crawford to discuss thrift and the environment, the impact of the financial crisis in Scotland and to broach the moral dimension of austerity - whether there is true virtue in thrift, whether austerity is simply a moral gloss on poverty and whether to be truly noble, austerity must be a choice and not a necessity.