In the PBR the Chancellor, at a stroke, doubled government debt to more than £1 trillion. The Conservatives warned at the time that this sort of economic recklessness would weaken market confidence in the UK economy. Figures released this afternoon appear to show this is already happening and as a consequence the market view of the risk of the UK Government defaulting on its debt has reached ...

The UK debt crisis has three constituent parts – household, government and banking. The fact that households, government and banks all went on a debt binge at the same time makes the risks for the UK economy so unusual.  The European Commission is now estimating that total UK Government debt will rise above £1.3trillion by the end of 2011, representing a more than trebling in the t...

No, it’s not dastardly speculators, not the CDS market, hedge funds or anything of the sort. In total, BNP Paribas, which has been at the centre of market fears connected to its exposure to eurozone sovereign debt, said it had reduced its government debt exposure by 25pc in the third quarter from €106bn (£91bn) to

What I hadn’t realised was that the UK’s debt market is peculiar. In the US, average length of the existing Treasury bonds was, at recent count, 4.7 years and falling. Because this is such a short maturity, it means the debt has to be rolled over far more often, and at every point the government

If this government is to retain the debt market's confidence it must shed its reputation for overly optimistic forecasts and must also try to avoid rolling over a large amount of debt at any one time

The UK Debt Management Office website shows that a UK Treasury bond offering 5% annual interest is, because of its current traded price, actually yielding 2.522793%. But the risk of default, almost as high as Italy's government debt and far higher than even the USA's, is (as Jesse quotes) currently priced at 1.63%. (The market currently prices the risk of USA default at 1%.) So after ins...

It's getting to the point where things go worryingly quiet. First we had a speculative and debt-fuelled stock market bubble; then ditto a housing bubble; and now that the US/UK governments have swallowed the grenades of debt instead of throwing them over the firing-step, a government finance bubble. I started this blog two years ago, because I thought precious few people sniffed what was in t...

The UK IT market continues to grow despite the global financial downturn. According to data from EITO, a European market research institute supported by Intellect, the UK will see a 1.4% rise in the value of its IT market this year to £59.3 billion.

Sometimes I get the impression the market might be trying to tell us something... UK government bond markets sold off sharply for the second day in a row on Thursday amid increasing alarm over the country’s rising debt levels. Investors took fright after the government’s annual Budget on Wednesday revealed borrowing would soar to levels not seen since the second world war, with a debt to gross...

Okay, here in a very few, sketchy lines, is what is going on while the world (including Newsnight, just for one day!) is distracted by the Obamathon. Problem One: There is substance behind the rumours that the UK sovereign debt is about to be downgraded. That is, there is both market logic and evidence that the markets are treating the UK debt as non AAA. Economist Graham Turner writes: "Spain los...