Sunday 8 November 2009

This financial mess isn't even the end of the beginning for UK wealth

Telegraph
"So terrible was Gordon Brown's economic stewardship during his decade as Chancellor from 1997, and so huge has been his "fiscal stimulus" since, that the UK now has the biggest structural deficit of any major country.

Britain faces a 2009/10 fiscal shortfall equal to 13pc of GDP – the biggest in our peacetime history – with little sign of improvement. The Government will borrow some £200bn on taxpayers' behalf every year until 2012/13 at least – eight times above "normal" levels. In just four years, an extra £32,000 will be added to the existing sovereign debt burden of every British household."

In an admirably frank report last week, the International Monetary Fund singled out the UK as "uniquely vulnerable" to spiralling debt service costs as we deal with the mess left by Brown's fiscal incontinence. In 2007, Britain spent 4.2pc of its tax revenues on debt interest. By 2014, we'll spend almost 10pc of receipts on servicing government loans, before we even start paying them back, as our national debt sky-rockets from 40pc to more than 100pc of GDP.

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