Europe may be a shambles – but is Britain worse?

David “Winston” Cameron�is on a trip�to teach Johnny Foreigner how to fight Islamic terrorism (as Britain has been doing so “successfully” in Afghanistan for ten years) and to give Johnny Foreigner lots more of our money – money that we don’t have and which we’ll have to borrow. Meanwhile, Johnny Foreigner must be laughing his sandals off as he funnels our money into his offshore bank accounts.

But back at home, things aren’t looking terribly tickety boo. In the last couple of months, the value of the pounds we’ll be shovelling into Johnny Foreigner’s bank accounts has fallen by almost a third compared to the euro. How can this be? Cameron and Osborne tell us they have a plan to sort out the mess caused by the useless, deluded�incompetents Brown and Balls. Yet international investors seem unconvinced and are ditching pounds as they hurry to get as far from sterling as they can.

Part of the problem may be that Britain’s deficit (horizontal axis on the chart)�is higher than many other European countries – higher than economic disaster zones like Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Cyprus and France:

And we have a�similar level of debt (vertical axis)�to totally bankrupt Spain and even more bankrupt Cyprus. Moreover, although we have lower debt than economic farces like Portugal, Belgium and Italy, as our deficit is higher than theirs, we’ll soon be catching up with them.

By 2014 our debt will be 104% of GDP, just�above Belgium. By 2015 our debt will be 111% of GDP getting closer to Portugal. And by 2016 our debt will be 119% of GDP – on a par with Portugal and Ireland – and well be into the red area (unsustainable) of the chart. Dear oh dear Mr Cameron, these are the kinds of numbers that are terrifying international investors. Perhaps, you should come home Mr Cameron and instead of handing ever more billions to Johnny Foreigner, try fixing the UK public finances instead?

Tomorrow Mr Cameron, I’ll tell you what you should do.