“A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money,” former US senator Everett Dirksen once reportedly quipped. He had yet to see the UK in 2023.
Britain is a great debtor, and the direction of travel appears only to be heading one way. Net public-sector borrowing last month hit £21.5 billion, the second-highest for March since monthly records began in 1993, taking total debt to an astonishing £2.5 trillion. The Chancellor points to higher spending due to the pandemic and rising energy prices. But the reality is that the UK has relied on borrowing to fill the shortfall between tax receipts and revenues for far longer.
