Our national debt is a crisis but at least we got a good dance track out of it

Monday 24 November 2008, and MPs are gripped by one of the most consequential parliamentary debates of the past 30 years. As Chancellor, the late Alistair Darling had just told the House that his pre-Budget statement was being made against a background of economic uncertainty not seen for generations and that they had gathered in extraordinary, challenging times for the global economy. Seven weeks before this statement, the government undertook an unprecedented £500bn bank bailout package. With the financial world still reeling, Darling announced to MPs that a collapse in tax revenue would necessitate a combination of fiscal stimulus and government borrowing, which will rise to £78bn this year and £118bn next year, or 8 per cent of GDP. Some MPs gasped. Others, as George Osborne would later point out, do not understand what the Chancellor has just announced. The shadow chancellor s response was devastating: The Chancellor has just announced the largest amount of borrow