Britain sets public debt record

LONDON, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- Britain's government debt has hit the highest ever at $1.3 trillion, and is rising by $9,800 per minute, statistics indicate.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show government borrowing grew by $26.2 billion in August, which The Times of London noted Saturday is nearly twice the entire budget for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Government ministers must come up with more than $49 billion per year just to pay the interest on the ballooning public debt as tax receipts plummet with the recession, the newspaper said.

The economic downturn has necessitated more government spending on unemployment and other government programs with the gap being filled by borrowing, The Times said. Some analysts said the budget forecast by Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, which predicts $285 billion in borrowing this year, is an unrealistically low.

"It seems likely that budget deficits will overshoot Treasury forecasts not only in 2009-10 but for years to come," John Hawksworth, chief economist at PricewaterhouseCoopers, told The Times.

"We used to worry about borrowing $26 billion in an entire year. Now Labor have done it in just one month," added Philip Hammond, the Conservative Party shadow chief secretary to the treasury.