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Truss/Kwarteng was the moment I realised we are in a debt trap. Like many other people I danced on their graves afterwards but when I'd digested what it really meant I was pretty horrified.
I hope someone in the treasury is working out what it would cost to default on the national debt because eventually there will be a Chancellor who cares about future generations more than themselves and has to seriously think about doing the deed.
I hope someone in the treasury is working out what it would cost to default on the national debt
It would most likely cost multiple pension funds, multiple banks, the pound, and hundreds of billions in increased interest rates. Then we have no money and borrowing is too expensive, so we don't get to have a deficit. So that's at least another £100b of cuts or extra funding we would need pretty much immediately.
Probably not worth it, on balance.
When interest paid on public debt for the last two years has coincidentally also been £100b you can see why the idea came into my head. It's consistently getting worse as well.
Well to start with you need to stop running a deficit. Once we are spending less than we raise in taxes we can pay down the debt and bring down those borrowing costs.
Alternatively you wait for inflation to overtake interest and eventually your debt pile and interest becomes a smaller and smaller part of the overall budget.
Well, time for Labour to clean house, before voters decide to punish them by inflicting Reform on us in the next GE.