MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Jobs have been lost, libraries shuttered, sailors sacked and street lights dimmed — Britain is beginning to taste the bitter medicine David Cameron warned was necessary to fix its wounded economy. It's left some wondering: Is the remedy worse than the symptoms?

As Cameron's Conservative Party gathered in Manchester Sunday for its annual convention, the prime minister faced a test of his resolve to tame the country's ballooning budget deficit — his key priority since taking office in May 2010 at the head of Britain's first coalition government since World War II.

Though the sharpest measures of a 81 billion pound ($126 billion) four-year program of public spending cuts are yet to bite, there are fears that the drastic action intended to slash Britain's debts has stalled the country's stuttering economic growth — a point of growing unease between the Conservatives and their left-of-center partners, the Liberal Democrats.

Figures released last month showed growth in Britain had slowed to 0.2 percent in the second quarter, diminishing hopes that the country's businesses can generate new jobs to replace public sector posts being lost under the austerity plan. In the last year about 250,000 public sector workers have been laid off, and the country's jobless rate was 7.9 percent in the period between May and July.