“After Years of Belt-Tightening, Weary England Is Feeling the Pinch,” announced a front-page, above-the-fold headline in the New York Times on May 28. It’s a lengthy article—more than 3,000 words—replete with stories about declining public services and attendant growth in social ills.

The message, of course, is one the average Times reader will have no trouble deciphering: Decreases in public spending, such as those advocated by fiscally conservative parties in Europe and North America, generate ruin and despair. But the story’s author, Peter Goodman, makes it explicit just to be sure: “For a nation with a storied history of public largess, the protracted campaign of budget cutting, started in 2010 by a government led by the Conservative Party, has delivered a monumental shift in British life. A wave of austerity has yielded a country that has grown accustomed to living with less, even as many measures of social well-being—crime rates, opioid addiction, infant mortality, childhood poverty and homelessness—point to a deteriorating quality of life.”