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Labour's 'colossal' borrowing and spending is fuelling their own debt crisis, says Mel Stride
Aug 6, 2025
The Shadow Chancellor has launched a scathing attack on the Government's economic management, accusing Labour of reckless fiscal policies that threaten Britain's financial stability.Mel Stride warned that mounting Government debt has reached its "peak level since the 1960s", with taxpayers now facing an enormous burden from interest payments.FULL STORY HERE.
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Hello, Mel Stride here, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, and this is GB News Originals
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Today we're going to take a close look at something with which Rachel Reeves is increasingly familiar
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Government debt. What is it? What's been happening to it? And why should you care
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Well, let me explain. So government debt, why does it matter how much we've borrowed
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One reason is because we have to pay interest on it. That's known as the servicing cost
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And the higher the servicing cost, the less the government can spend elsewhere
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like on schools, hospitals, defence, or do other things like cut taxes
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or perhaps even pay back some of that debt. So how big is our debt
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Well, this chart shows the forecast for our debt over the next five years
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as a percentage of the size of the economy. Today, under Labour, that's pushing up towards 100%
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That's a debt mountain, with a peak the highest it's been since the 1960s
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Now, when we were in office, the Conservatives had strict fiscal rules
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which said the forecasts had to show debt falling. This was to make sure we were living within our means
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and not simply piling up more debt for future generations. But this Labour government have changed the rules
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to let them borrow more and allow the debt to rise higher and higher
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to borrow, borrow, borrow so they can spend, spend, spend on a colossal scale
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In fact, by the end of the decade, Labour plans to have spent almost half a trillion pounds more
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compared to the plans they inherited. And this chart shows how that extra spending is to be paid for
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Each bar here shows the additional spending every year for the next five years
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As you can see in a few years time Labour plans to spend about more every single year The orange sections show what is being paid for with extra tax and the blue sections are what is left
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That means it has to be covered by, yes, you guessed it, extra borrowing
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As you can see, huge increases in taxes, but nowhere near enough to pay for all that spending
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The rest, almost half, comes from borrowing. And that means yet more debt
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the code GBNEWS. Take back control of your data with Incogni. So how much is the servicing cost on this ballooning debt? It's over £100 billion a year
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That twice what we spend on defence In fact if our national debt were a government department it would be the third largest spending department in government Except this is money simply going to our creditors not there to support our vital
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public services. Now it's vital that we get that bill down, but the current government is planning
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to just keep adding to it. As this chart shows, under Labour, forecast servicing costs on our debt
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are due to rise to over £130 billion. But there is another reason why we spend a lot servicing our debt
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We pay a high rate of interest on it. Why? Well, the interest we pay in part depends on the confidence of investors who lend to us
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If they are less confident in our economy, they will demand higher interest
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And at the moment, they just see anemic growth, rising unemployment and economic mismanagement
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So they charge us more. In fact, currently, thanks to Labour, our borrowing costs are amongst the highest
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across advanced economies. Higher than the US, Italy, Canada, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Japan and even Greece
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And a higher interest bill means higher pressure for the government to raise taxes yet again
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damaging our economy even further. It's a vicious cycle. And this whole sorry story speaks not just to economic incompetence
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but also to broken promises. Rachel Reeves said at the election that her plans involved hardly any extra spending
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hardly any extra borrowing. She said she would use the same figures as the Conservative government
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when setting her fiscal rules. Then she changed the rules to try to hide all the extra debt and pretend it's all under control
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And after the humiliating U we seen on things like welfare reform it clear to everyone that even if she wanted to rein in spending the government just too weak to deliver One of the most important things for a Chancellor is trust Taxpayers
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businesses and international markets have to believe you when you say you will balance the
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books. But how can anyone trust what Rachel Reeves says, after all those broken promises
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all of the U-turns, all of the chaos. The truth is that under Labour we are living beyond our means
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and piling up debt. And if we're not careful, we'll soon be drowning in it
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And while that might all sound pretty bleak, it could get even worse
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Economists are warning that Labour's U-turns and the worrying state of the economy
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mean there's now a gaping black hole in the public finances. It seems all but inevitable that Rachel Reeves will be coming back
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for yet more tax rises come the autumn budget, despite her promises
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And that means a summer of cruel uncertainty, with businesses and families waiting to hear what's next
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on the Chancellor's list of tax rises, damaging confidence in our economy still further
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One thing of which we can be sure, is we can't afford to go on like this
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