Only Ireland and Iceland have had a bigger debt explosion than the UK

Sally Chatterjee

"An argument put forward by some Labour types..."
Surely Labour have forfeited any chance to even debate public finance? Brown's tragic vandalism means Labour wouldn't know sound money if it walked up to them and slapped them in the face.

TGF UKIP

Politically it's almost irrelevant in how bad the debt figures are since the Cameron Green's are so demonstrably useless in transforming them into political scoring opportunities.

paul holdstock

i fear that the actual cost of PFI schemes/scams will tip the uk into a credit rating downgrade.
quite how brown and co. expect to get away with the treasonous mis-management of the economy, once ejected from government baffles me.
the public appetite for some form of vicious revenge will surely lead to a sad end for all concerned.

saddleworth

This message has not and will not reach Planet Brown. He will be much more inclined to listen to Talking Balls - who looks like he is leaving Planet Brown to move towards a new planet ouside of the Galaxy.
But is anyone else listening to this type of financial message? The financial markets appear to be holding off only until they understand what is proposed post-election. Does any party with a realsitic chance of being in involved in a post-election government have a plan to address this?

Mark M

Well, what an argument for low taxes. The Swiss national debt won't even increase. And they say Direct Democracy doesn't work - I would say the Swiss people have done a damn sight better than our elected leaders.

Short the UK

Can you organise a chart that shows the trade surplus/deficit of each country. Be interesting to see how the UKs stands up relative to the others?

If we were running a trade surplus there might be some hope, but as we run a deficit we continue to live like an aristocrat. One day our creditors will take away the plastic or hit us with a penal interest rate. That day of reckoning is getting closer and our debt fuelled lifestyle will be shown to be an illusion.

Who is going to carry the can for the recent hyper-inflation in UK property prices, this is the root of our problems.

Dennis Churchill

Stories like this one:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235604/Single-mother-living-2-6m-mansion--Labours-housing-benefit-crackdown.html
From the Daily Mail mean tax payers won’t accept increases which they see as being wasted.
We are now, like the U.S much too diverse, and simply do not identify closely enough with each other, to be prepared to fund a lavish welfare state.
Cameron is not going to frighten the large numbers of public sector workers by stating the obvious: the state sector must be radically reduced and welfare payments of all types reduced to safety net standards.

bert

despite all of this, Labour are just 5 percentage points from an overall majority at the next GE.

will the public panic and stick with nanny? God help every man, woman and child if they do win.

In2minds

Like father like son; go to the link in the Hoskin post and you find yourself at the website 'Left foot forward'. It's worth a good read for a laugh as it's run by Will Straw. His Dad Jack was once praised by Barbara Castle for his “low cunning”, it runs in the family!

Frugal Dougal

Worse than Spain, Denmark and America I can take; but KOREA?

Jeremy

Oh dear.

How are we going to get ourselves out of this situation? I mean...can we get ourselves out of it in a civilized, reasonable and responsible manner?

The Labour government is not so much skating on thin ice, as levitating above the abyss by the simple expedient of not acknowledging its existence. Clearly this cannot go on forever. Nor, probably, for very long at all. And how much time, pray, do we have?

gareth

Come On Gordon - you can do it.
I saw 2012 and it was a rubbish film, unbelievable and so PC.
But we could have a real life earth shaking event if you get back in - worth watching - the truth is far stranger than fiction.
Come on everybody, Vote for Gordon and watch the fireworks!!

Dirty Euro

The USA has higher debt and does not even own their banks.
Bang socialism works.

wrinkled weasel

Being a Swissiephile, I am fascinated to see that, whilst Britain and Switzerland have similar figures in column one, the Swiss projection actually shows a decrease. If anybody can shed light on this, I would be very grateful.

Olaf Rye

The disastrous levels of public debt in Canada were reduced over a decade of public spending control coupled with the most benign economic cycle since the 1950s supervening. We can get out of this downward spiral, but it takes public and political will. Unfortunately, I do not think that either exists: notice the apologists for socialism here, attempting to distract people from the fundamental issue of complete mismanagement of the economy by the state and its inherent inability to live within its means. It is this vile sense of class resentment that will return Britain to its customary place as a result of Labour government policies: the Sick Man of Europe.

Amadeus Plonquer

wrinkled weasel - to answer your question, Switzerland is in Europe but not in the EU.

ALSO: In Switzerland they make bankers welcome. Many of our City bankers (and their banks) will be heading for Switzerland soon to swell their coffers with more tax revenue. This leaves the British people very happy to have punished those nasty bankers and perfectly ready to pay the additional tax needed to fill the fiscal black hole they leave behind.

emil

A disappointing #3, but Brown is trying ever harder to hit the number one spot by Christmas with every foreign trip, and off the cuff pledge.

El Sid

I know I've said this before, but the reason our debt looked so good before the crunch was the accounting treatment of our sovereign wealth fund from North Sea oil. Or rather, the fact that we never set one up and to date some £157bn (see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/corporate_tax/table11_11.xls ) has flowed into the general coffers. That's about 15% of GDP on its own, never mind the fact that even if you just assume it's been invested in gilts all this time, it would be a bit more than Norway's £200bn SWF - which is about right, as we started with about as much North Sea oil as they have but have extracted more of it.

Yet Brown has spent it. Yep, all our North Sea oil money has gone. In fact it's far worse than that. He spent our SWF once in the second half of his Chancellorship, 2002-7. He then spent it again in the first 2 years of his premiership, and now wants to make spending all our North Sea oil money an annual event. Someone needs to tell him - there was only one North Sea.

Kevin Lynch

Intresting table. It also highlights the myth that the French and Germans are the exemplars of Eurozone prudence, in stark contrast to the Irish, for example. As the table shows, the French and Germans breached the Eurozone Debt/GDP criteria even in the good times. And they lecture others on deficit management...? Arrogant, yes; surprising, no.