Aspects of Nationalisation - Debt and Free Markets

The national debt is the accmulated outstanding borrowing of central and local government together with public corporations. One of the immediate effects of the bail outs for financial institutions is that the total national debt has climbed by tens of billions of pounds. If the full extent of the extra finance made available to support the partly-nationalised banks is taken up, then UK national debt might rise to 100% in the near future, an almost unprecedented position to be in during peace time. The last time that government sector debt exceeded fifty per cent of our GDP was in the late 1970s when the Callaghan Labour government was forced into a bout of emergency borrowing from the International Monetary Fund.

This Independent article looks at the position and how the debt will be financed.

This Financial Times editorial considers the role that government intervention can play in saving free market institutions.

In today’s Guardian, Ashley Seager considers how the crisis has affected Britain’s public finances