Todays figures make sobering reading: see below for the full story in the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/22/britain-still-in-recession but the short point is that we are getting more and more heavily into a debt we cannot sustain: even the Guardian admits that -
A leading ratings agency has warned Britain to get a tighter grip on its record budget deficit and figures revealed that the slump of the past 18 months was now officially the deepest since the second world war.
Fitch said that the UK needed to "articulate more credible and stronger fiscal consolidation during the course of 2010 to underpin confidence in the sustainability of public finances".
Failure to do so, the ratings agency added, would greatly increase the chances of a debt downgrade, which would increase the cost of servicing the national debt.
Confirmation that the UK is the only G20 nation still in recession sent the pound tumbling to a two-month low against the US dollar, with sterling dipping below the $1.60 level after the ONS announcement.
Officials said they now estimated that the economy contracted by 0.2% in the third quarter following a drop of 0.7% in the three months to June. The ONS said that new data showed that the UK had performed worse earlier in the recession than originally believed, leaving the economy 5.1% smaller at the end of the third quarter of 2009 than it had been a year earlier.
Putting it bluntly we have to live within our means - we just aren't at the moment.
