As Britons trudge to the polls on Thursday, they do so knowing that none of the men who aspire to be the next prime minister have been fully honest with the electorate about the horrors of Britain's looming fiscal crisis. The country may have decided that the country needs change, but it's also afraid of that change and the austerity it will demand. Unless the polls are wrong, it seems that David Cameron will be asked to clean up the mess. It is not an enviable task.
The new government is going to be in hock to the bond market as London demands urgent action on both Britain's ballooning fiscal deficit and a national debt that, on current forecasts, will reach an eye-watering £1.4 trillion (about $2.1 trillion) by the end of the next parliament. Simply servicing that debt could cost £80 billion a year—or roughly half the current annual deficit, which, this year, amounts to fully 12 percent of GDP.
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