Britain will never get back in the black if we don’t take a chainsaw to our bloated public sector departments
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THERE is no dressing up yesterday’s awful figures on government borrowing. Britain is behaving like someone who tries to cope with losing their job by going out on a spending spree on multiple credit cards. In December alone the Government was forced to borrow £17.8billion, nearly three times what Rishi Sunak’s government had to borrow a year earlier.
![[Rachel Reeves speaking at a podium.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/british-chancellor-exchequer-rachel-reeves-965373536.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
As bond markets were telling us when prices of UK government gilts plunged a fortnight ago, the gap between government spending and revenue is becoming unsustainable. The interest on the Government’s debts is itself costing £100billion a year – more than it spends on either education or defence, and around three fifths of what it spends on the NHS.
![[Blurred image of an empty hospital room with beds.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/empty-medical-room-copy-space-965831658.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
We cannot go on like this. The worse that the public spending figures become, the more that bond investors will start to worry about the Government’s ability to repay its debts and the higher the interest rates they will demand in order to compensate them for the risks.
![[Presidential hopeful Javier Milei holding a chainsaw at a campaign rally.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/presidential-hopeful-javier-mile-brandishes-864823394.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
That, in turn, will push up government spending, making it even more difficult to balance the books, and so on in a vicious circle until the country becomes bankrupt, as several councils have already become. It is tempting to enjoy Rachel Reeves’ discomfort as, once again, she is caught on a foreign trip while bad economic news arrives back at home.
![[Photo of Gordon Brown speaking.]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/2023-former-prime-minister-gordon-917313544.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
