Today is an exciting one for the TaxPayers' Alliance - our UK Debt Clock starts its 1,300 mile tour of Britain, highlighting the vast scale of the national debt to taxpayers right across the country.
For many years now, there has been a clock counting up the USA's National Debt in New York, acting as a constant reminder to people how much the Government is borrowing for taxpayers to one day pay off. Inspired by that, we have built what we believe to be the biggest digital clock in the world to do the same for the UK national debt.
Seven metres long, and one metre tall, mounted on the back of a 14 metre lorry, the TPA Debt Clock drives home exactly how vast Britain's national debt now is. To get an impression of its size, have a look at the first photo of it here.
The national debt is run up by politicians in Westminster, but has a hugely damaging impact on taxpayers right around the country - as well as equating to a bill of over £30,000 per family, it is threatening to undermine our credit rating and destory investor confidence in Britain. Therefore we have made our clock mobile, so we can take the message to the people.
After its launch today in Westminster it will visit the Bank of England and then go on to the Millennium Dome before leaving London and travelling around the country. It will be stopping off at:
Oxford, Tuesday 13th April
Bristol, Wednesday 14th April
Cardiff, Thursday 15th April
Birmingham, Friday 16th April
Manchester, Monday 19th April
Edinburgh, Tuesday 20th April
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Wednesday 21st April
Hull, Thursday 22nd April
Peterborough, Friday 23rd April
Norwich, Monday 26th April
and you can get full details of each stop on the tour from www.debt-clock.org
Even if the clock isn’t passing through your neighbourhood, you can get your own debt clock to embed on your own website or blog. Our online debt clock counts up the national debt in real time at the same pace as its full size cousin:
To get your own debt clock widget, click here and copy the code to your own site.
The national debt can be a bafflingly large figure - particularly in an age when billions and trillions are bandied around so readily. To help put it in context, here are a few facts about the debt, which currently stands at over £781.5 billion:
- The Bank of England holds £21.669 billion in gold bullion and foreign currencies as the national reserve. The Government borrows that much money every seven weeks.
- The Millennium Dome (now the O2) cost £789 million. That is equal to 1 day, 18 hours and 24 minutes of the national debt’s increase.
- Using the existing debt you could buy some remarkably lavish things (if you so wished). For example, you could more than afford an exact replica of London's HMS Belfast, made of gold, at £673.3 billion. Similarly, building the whole Royal Navy fleet out of silver would cost £590 billion.
The message is clear - politicians must wake up to the scale of the national debt.
For more debt facts, information on the Debt Clock tour, media coverage of the clock and other information, visit www.debt-clock.org or follow the Clock's http://twitter.com/debt_clock.
