McKinseyQuarterly has published a scary article (free registration required) that shows how the UK’s debt (private and public sector) has now reached Japanese levels, far higher than other Western countries, including to the US. (Hattip: Guy Fawkes’ blog.)
I’m not sure how serious this is in its own right. For instance, for Japan it is often said that the massive debt is less of a problem because most of the creditors are Japanese, too. However, this is unlikely to be the case for the UK.
All that I can see is that if the UK’s debt needs to be reduced to American (or just French) levels, it’s going to be very, very painful.