Broke

A dozen years into austerity, statistical warning lights are flashing to suggest a return to types of deprivation that we once imagined we had consigned to the history books. The official count of rough sleepers has doubled, recorded malnutrition in hospital patients has tripled and dependence on foodbanks has rocketed by an order of magnitude. Amid rising prices and falling confidence, all the forecasts are for such numbers getting even worse.

And yet it has never been statistics but rather individual human stories — from the fictionalised accounts of Dickens to the faithful reporting of Orwell and Priestley — that have seared the reality of hard times into the imagination.

In Broke, Tom Clark assembles today’s masters of social reportage, including Dani Garavelli, Samira Shackle and Daniel Trilling, and tasks each with bringing us face-to-face with those at the hardest end of the cost-of-living crisis.

With Joel Goodman’s bespoke photography bringing the characters to life, and several of the writers having had first-hand experience of the issues raised, this urgent collection restores some badly needed empathy to the public discussion. Moreover, by setting out possible reforms and highlighting the fortitude and resistance with which so many destitute Britons are answering their plight, it encourages hopes of a future in which the spectres of hunger, cold and homelessness are finally laid to rest.

‘An important account of a real emergency and a moral crisis we ignore at our peril.’ – Gordon Brown

‘Broke shows the human side of the shameful statistical record of destitution that austerity and the current cost-of-living crisis has brought to millions of Britons.’ – New Statesman

‘A devastating portrait of modern poverty, Broke is urgently reported and beautifully written, with humane and empathetic accounts of what it feels like to be caught in a 21st-century poverty trap. This collection of essays sets out in disturbing detail the true impact of a decade of austerity policies and should be required reading for politicians and policymakers.’ – Amelia Gentleman, author of The Windrush Betrayal

‘Drawing on the testimony of those trapped in the quicksand of poverty, Broke is an overdue wake-up call for anyone who still thinks Britain is a normal, fair or "civilised" country.’ – Darren McGarvey, BBC Reith lecturer, Orwell Prize winner and author of Poverty Safari