{"id":328136,"date":"2025-08-08T14:56:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T14:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328136\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T14:56:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T14:56:14","slug":"britain-is-broke-the-spectator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328136\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain is broke | The Spectator"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Britain is continuing to chuck billions onto our mounting pile of debt. Figures just\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/economy\/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes\/publicsectorfinance\/bulletins\/publicsectorfinances\/june2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">released<\/a>\u00a0by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that last month the state had to borrow just under \u00a321 billion. That was \u00a36.6 billion more than in June last year and the second-highest June borrowing total since records began 32 years ago.<\/p>\n<p>The ONS confirmed the surge in borrowing was a continuation of the fiscal doom loop this country now finds itself in. \u2018The rising costs of providing public services and a jump in the debt interest we have to pay on inflation-linked gilts outweighed increased revenue brought in from tax hikes.<\/p>\n<p>Interest due on our debt hit \u00a316.4 billion in June, which was \u00a38.4 billion more than June last year and again the second highest figure since records began. We\u2019re reaping the results of what might prove to be a financially fatal decision by the treasury to issue billions of \u2018index-linked gilts\u2019 when borrowing costs were so low. Now that inflation has returned, that borrowing has become cripplingly expensive and is why we\u2019re paying Greek levels of debt interest on Canadian levels of debt.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We\u2019re paying Greek levels of debt interest on Canadian levels of debt<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This morning\u2019s news is yet more evidence that the Chancellor\u2019s wafer-thin headroom against her \u2018ironclad\u2019 fiscal rules has been more than wiped out. The borrowing figure for June was \u00a33.5 billion more than the Office for Budget Responsibility had assumed in their forecasts. Their overall forecast for the year is more on track but economists expect that to slip as we approach the budget in Autumn.<\/p>\n<p>It does not seem at all sustainable that we can tolerate debt interest doubling in the space of a year. Yet this is the mess the Treasury created by issuing so many inflation-linked gilts with little foresight \u2013 and one the Bank of England, as I wrote in last week\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/article\/broke-britain-how-the-bank-of-england-wrecked-the-economy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">cover<\/a>, helped entrench with its addiction to cheap money and painfully slow response to rising prices. Now that inflation has returned, the bill is coming due.<\/p>\n<p>Britain is no longer borrowing to invest and grow. It is borrowing simply to stand still. We\u2019re chasing our tail to service past decisions, patch up public services, and cover the interest on our own excess. We\u2019re broke and we should be angry about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain is continuing to chuck billions onto our mounting pile of debt. Figures just\u00a0released\u00a0by the Office for National&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,4884,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-328136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-northern-ireland","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114993731071199652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}