After the Global Financial Crisis two powerful narratives developed:

1. That our problem was a greedy Public Sector

2. That austerity was the only solution.

Our guest in The Tortoise Shack is author of ‘Overpaid’ and ‘inefficient’: print media framings of the public sector in The Irish Times and The Irish Independent during the financial crisis, Dr Aileen Marron. Aileen points out that the reemergence of these tactics as we begin to see an easing of the Covid-19 restrictions and we talk about how we can spot these narratives and counter them. Whilst this new government has said that they must 'avoid the perception of implementing austerity', that is very different to not rolling it out again. We can counter it, we just need to be able to spot Divide and Rule when it's presented as the sensible option.

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