UK government debt hits £1 trillion

Nickle

Liar.

The public sector debt is not 1.05 trillion.

Where are the state pension debts?

Where are the contractual civil service debts?

Where is the capital part of PFI?

Where is the expected losses on the guarantees to banks, to old state industry pension schemes such as BT's? {massive black hole there}

Where is nuclear decommissioning? Paid for up front, where the government promises to clean up in return.

All of these are debts. None of them is included in your 1.05 trillion figure.

So its a lie. Pure and simple.

You clearly do not understand the difference between borrowing via gilts, which is what the graph shows, and debt.

Pettros

Wow this lot are almost as bad as the last lot!

Simon Stephenson.

Nickle : 10.01am

Not a lie, no. Public Sector Net Debt, as defined, doesn't include pension liabilities, PFI etc., so a graph and a discussion about PSND shouldn't include them either.

tom jones

It's a disgrace that we've allowed ourselves to be made out to be massive spending cutters when in reality we're simply spending a little less than Labour would've. These graphs should be sent to every household in the UK to show what a mess we're in and why cuts are needed. We need to be cutting massively, not trimming.

baroness Helena Handcart QC

@ Nickle.

Not quite the right tone my dear fellow. Why don't you go and hunch over your organ solo somewhere else?

Fatbloke on tour

JJ

Where is the GDP figure.
Raw numbers are just that data.

Data - the lowest form of intelligence.

What about information?
What about knowledge?
What about expertise?
What about wisdom?

You really are playing to the gallery.
The right wing mentalists of SpeccyLand know no better.

Dimoto

I think Nickel has been reading Evans-Pritchard's latest rant (he sounds more and more like the Gold bug loons who fill his comments section).

Mr Jones (the site trivialist) chooses to concentrate on "the big number", tabloid stylee, conveniently ignoring that December's stats again came in slightly better than plan (or city forecasts).

Still, January is the season of OTT negativism, and the DT has certainly been laying it on thick.

Have a good wallow Mr Jones !

PayDirt

Over at WEF, the decision-makers are gathering to solve the debt problem, they talk growth and Microsoft say we’ll all be saved by cloud computing.

Jon Stack

Astonishing to think that, against this background, a benefits cap at £26000 is even being debated. If you were to design a welfare system from scratch would it be at this level? We need a real cost cutting government to take over at the next election, and to break the stranglehold that vested interests have on pay and conditions in the public sector. We also need to set businesses free with new low taxes.

It doesn't add up...

We went through that barrier ages ago. The DMO reveals that gilts outstanding now amount to £1,162.15bn, with an additional £70.314bn in Treasury Bills.

Cynic

What was it Labour said about cutting too soon and too deep? Seems like we're not cutting anything like hard enough.

Adam Nixon

Perhaps this headline will at least stop people droning on about the difference between the "British and "American" billion and trillion. If you want to use the "British" (i.e. European) numbers, then the debt has reached a billion not a trillion.