Shopping at Brent Cross using debt: "Trouble in store: the grave future of British public and private debt"

"A future of rising interest rates and deepening debts beckon, with the UK unable, or unwilling, to countenance a solution"

Link to The Guardian

"When interest rates begin to rise, we're told they will top out at 3%. Don't worry, homeowners, say the rate-setters, crippling monthly payments are a thing of the past.

"Charlie Bean, the former deputy governor of the Bank of England and one of the rate-setters until last month, made it clear that the scale of household debts made it impossible to return to something like normal within the next 10 years.

"... There are several critics of this view, including Boris Johnson's economic adviser Gerard Lyons, who said last week that rates should canter towards 6%. Lyons, a former City analyst, is among a minority in the Square Mile who subscribe to a more optimistic outlook for the nation's economic health and the consumer's ability to shop and pay their debts at the same time.

"Yet this possibly London-centric view underestimates the sheer scale of debts already accumulated and, after a brief period of repayment, the need to feed consumption with debt. There is also the government balance sheet to consider. With increasing burdens on its spending, the ability of governments to support consumer spending – as they have done in recent years with a constant diet of tax credits and tax cuts – will become limited."