Debt mountain

James Nimmo's solution to the debt crisis (Letters, 11 June ) is fatally flawed, but it's not his fault. The media and politicians alike have let the public down by continually using the word debt, when they mean deficit. The country's debt is actually nearer to £800 billion.

By The Newsroom

Published 28th Feb 2019, 14:03 GMT

The 165bn that is habitually referred to in news bulletins is merely the deficit between tax earnings and public spending for last year alone. This is projected to be repeated for several years to come, unless action is taken, and it is estimated that in four years time, the debt will have grown to 1.4 trillion, with interest payments alone rising to 70bn per annum.

So Mr Nimmo's solution of the temporary Employment Bond would need to be replaced with a 50 per week permanent tax increase on every worker, just to pay off the interest and not even dent the debt mountain.

People who are already complaining about anticipated cuts really have no idea how dire our financial position is. It's truly shocking that no party was brave enough during the election campaign to spell out the extent of the problem, for fear of frightening the public about cuts, and even more shocking that the last government continued to spend money at an alarming rate prior to that election, for political reasons.

If the directors of a company had behaved in such a way and continued to spend money they didn't have, they'd no doubt be disqualified from running a public company.

STEVE EDWARDS

Turretbank Drive

Crieff, Perthshire