FOR THE last few years the NoNonsense Economics blog has tracked the inexorable rise in Britain’s national debt, with a clock visible inside a bomb ticking ever higher.
Yesterday afternoon, it stood at £1,007 billion, just hours after the Office of National Statistics had produced its latest figures showing Britain is now a trillionaire debtor. The ONS’s numbers put the net debt at 64.2 per cent of Britain’s gross national product (GNP) – up from £883 billion a year ago. In 1997 – when Labour came to power – it stood at £352 billion, and doubled by 2009.
Even though the NoNonsense Economics figures are out of date as soon as they are written, the site tries to put the figures in context: “We owe £15,940 for every man, woman and child.
“That’s more than £34,828 for every person in employment. Every household will pay £2,108 this year, just to cover the interest,” it said, complaining that an insurmountable burden is being left for future generations.
Responding to the the ONS figures, the treasury said: “That our national debt has reached more than one trillion pounds simply shows the unsustainable level of spending this country built up over the past few years, and shows why it is critical for our nation’s future that we deal decisively with the deficit.”
The latest numbers understate, if anything, the scale of Britain’s burden; it is currently able to borrow at near-record low rates because London is seen as a haven by nervous international investors.
The £1 trillion sum does not include the costs of rescuing Royal Bank of Scotland and Halifax Bank of Scotland, since both are still regarded as public companies.
So far, the dream of selling the British government’s majority shareholdings to investors for a profit remains just that. Indeed, RBS’s share price halved during the last year, not rose.
Nearly £800 billion is at risk, according to European Union figures, in capital, liability guarantees and liquidity support to the banking sector.
