Photograph from the New York Times website The key points: After 8 years of austerity, Britain is looking less like the rest of Europe and more like the US, with a shrinking welfare state and greater poverty. A monumental shift has occurred has occurred in British life. Crime rates, drug addition, infant mortality, childhood poverty and homelessness are on the increase, i.e. a deteriorating quality of life. “It [austerity] has refashioned British society, making it less like