Autumn statement chart of the day: public sector net debt


Via the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement (PDF), the revised trajectory of public sector net debt:

Click for Autumn Statement Green Book (PDF)

City AM reported back in July on a poll that,

asked whether the coalition would be keeping the national debt the same over the next four years, increasing it by £350bn or cutting it by £350bn. Just nine per cent got it right – 21 per cent thought it would be staying the same and an astonishing 70 per cent thought the national debt would be cut by £350bn.

Allister Heath went on to call this widespread failure to distinguish between debt and deficit “a massive failure of journalism”. I wonder what the survey would report today, now that the debt will be even larger.

The deficit is what the Government intend to reduce: that is, the shortfall between taxes and spending. Our debt will not just continue to balloon, but to ballon to a greater degree than forecast.

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Comments & Responses

2 Responses so far.

  1. John Moss says:

    The language is all wrong. We need to talk about the government’s “overdraft” (deficit) and our collective mortgage (debt) to which the overdraft is added at the end of each year when the government spends more that it gets in.