Tories have presented Austerity as a pragmatic solution. The argument is that if you cut benefits and so on there will be a saving as there will be less spending. But benefits go to those who have lots of stuff they need but can't afford, as soon as they get any extra money they spend it on those things and it goes straight back into the economy and causes a stimulus. Cutting benefits therefore cuts the stimulus and, as we saw over the years of austerity, the lost stimulus more than wiped out the saving made by cutting the benefits and the economy barely grew.
The other side of the coin is the claim that if you give money to the rich then they will create new businesses which employ people, or create some brilliant invention or something - things that benefit everyone. And no doubt some do do something like that, however the vast majority just add it to their already huge piles in the Cayman Islands or wherever, effectively taking it out of the economy.
The stark reality is, money given to those who need it most goes straight back into the economy, whereas money given to the ultra-rich vanishes. Yet Austerity, while claiming to be a necessary evil which will save money is entirely predicated on the ideological insistence that the exact opposite is true.
As far as I can tell austerity is a huge lie. It claims to be a necessary evil based on the brutal situation we face, when it's actually a deliberate choice, the justification for which in fact rests on the ideological denial of reality and the insistence that black is white. It's sneaky and convincing and a lot of people were fooled into believing that Osborne reluctantly took a tough decision for a greater good. That sadly his form of tough love inevitably immediately hit the poor in the short term - but at least we were all in it together - for a long term gain for everyone.