The Scotsman - Brian Monteith: Parties bankrupted by their worthless vows on economy
Last week we had the TaxPayers' Alliance Debt Clock arriving outside the Scottish Parliament and the RBS HQ to illustrate not just the scale of the debt (currently at about £780 billion) but how quickly compound interest makes it climb – by the time we vote next week the total will have increased by £6bn.
Harlow Star - UK Debt Clock rolls into town centre
SHOPPERS in Harlow town centre on Monday were greeted by the signt of a giant digital ‘clock’ tracking the UK’s national debt.
Round Town News - Eh, it's been an Eyjafjallajökull of a week…
The ever vigilant Tax Payers’ Alliance has been travelling around Britain these past few weeks with their marvellous Debt Clock Road Show. It is a timely, if not worrying reminder of the state of things. Britain’s national debt goes up at a rate of £5,169 every second. Every second! So, just reading this nonsense it’s gone up over another £600,000. £5,169 per second is £310,212 per minute; which is £18,607,306 per hour and an unimaginable £446,575,342 per day. Quick, STOP that clock. For an instant up-date (if you’ve the stomach for it) go to www.debt-clock.org and be frightened by the way the national debt is racking-up! So, please bear that in mind if you’re thinking of taking sympathy on Brown.
Norwich Evening News - National debt ticks into Norwich
The national debt was on the agenda as a campaign group brought a giant clock displaying Britain's debt to the centre of Norwich.
The Taxpayers' Alliance's seven metre long lorry-mounted digital clock, counting up the national debt at a speed of £5,168 per second, stopped outside The Forum yesterday morning as part of its 1,300 mile tour of the UK.
The Sunday Telegraph - The Week to Come
TOMORROW: The TaxPayers' Alliance's lorry-mounted "debt clock" ends its tour of Britain; it showed UK public debt clocking up an extra £5,168 per second.
Yorkshire Post - Living on tick... Hock clock reveals dramatic extent of UK national debt
The grim statistics were rammed home when the Taxpayers' Alliance's giant debt clock visited Hull yesterday, showing passers-by in Queen Victoria Square the staggering rate at which the debt mountain is growing – £5,168 a second, £18,607,305 an hour and £446,575,342 a day.
The Alliance accuses the main political parties of not being upfront with voters about the size of the debt or the steps needed to address it.
Remember the Taxpayers’ Alliance “debt clock”, the lorry-mounted digital calculator currently on a tour of the country to alert Britons to the scale of the national debt crisis?
I hear the clock rocked up to the Royal Bank of Scotland’s mammoth headquarters at Gogarburn, near Edinburgh, this week, to lambast the ordinary working folk for the government’s bailout of the bank in the depths of the crisis.
“It’s safe to say there was a fair bit of consternation,” chirps campaign director Mark Wallace, gleefully.
Perhaps they’d like to park it in front of Sir Fred Goodwin’s Edinburgh pad, too?
The Independent - RBS gets a visit from the TaxPayers' Alliance
As if Royal Bank of Scotland doesn't have enough to worry about, its Gogarburn HQ in Edinburgh was yesterday doorstepped by the TaxPayers' Alliance. It parked its lorry-mounted 7m-long "debt clock" outside. The alliance explains: "The Government spent £46bn on RBS shares as part of a bailout; now it borrows roughly that every three months."
ITV Tonight - Paying Britain's Bill
In the run-up to the election, Morland Sanders looks at how our money is being spent, how we are going to pay back the national debt, and what this means to families across Britain
Watch again online here.
ITV Tyne Tees Tonight
KCFM 99.8
TPA Hull & East Riding Organiser Andrew Allison was interviewed about the Debt Clock for the Breakfast show and hourly news bulletins
South Wales Echo - Clock ticks on nation's giant debts
A GIANT debt clock parked up in Cardiff Bay yesterday to show the nation's escalating debt. Run by campaign group the Taxpayers' Alliance, the clock was at over £783.23bn when it arrived in the Welsh capital.
Campaign manager Emma Boon said: "We often hear government's talking numbers but when the figures are getting so large it's difficult to know how much that really is. When you see it like this it's scary, especially as it's increasing at over pounds 5,000 per second."
The Debt Clock had ticked on by an extra £18m by the time it left Cardiff.
Ludlow Advertiser - Update on Election Campaigners in Ludlow
Philip Dunne, the Conservative candidate, hosted a ‘Debt Clock’ mounted on the side of an articulated lorry at Ludlow Food Centre last Thursday.
The Taxpayers’ Alliance has organised the digital display, which calculates how much the Government has borrowed since April 1.
A quick bite of lunch and a pot of tea at Tirreno's on Bondgate Without, and we headed up to Purdy Lodge to meet the Taxpayers Alliance and their GIANT debt clock which they are driving right around the country with. The clock is recording the increasing debt mountain under which we are all labouring, which at the time we met the lorry, was up to £782.3 billion. This is such a HUGE number that it is very hard to get to grips with just how much that is - but something like £20,000 per person, or £446 million more debt per day, enough to dual the A1 every day during the election campaign, or the chance to build 10 new Duchess High Schools. But this money is not being used to invest in North Northumberland for the long term, it is being used to fund quangos and waste in the public sector which Gordon Brown has refused to tackle.
The Scotsman - Brian Monteith: What Butler saw is the remedy for all our ills
Butler's exposé of how the national debt is worse than we think it is (the PFI debt is never included despite repeated concerns raised by the Comptroller General) would knock out the toughest fighter and the visit to Edinburgh next Tuesday by the TaxPayers' Alliance debt clock backs up his point. When the artic lorry-sized clock left Westminster last week to travel round Britain, the country's national debt was £781,512,328,767 – by the time it returns at the end of the election campaign the interest alone will have added another £6,698,630,137.
Shropshire Star - Taxpayers' debt clock visits county
The TaxPayers’ Alliance “debt clock” was visiting Ludlow and Bridgnorth today as part of its 1,300-mile tour of Britain.
As the UK counts down to the election, the lorry-mounted clock is counting up the national debt.
Your Cardiff - Debt clock parks up in Cardiff to show national debt
The national debt was on the agenda as a campaign group bought a giant LED clock displaying Britain’s debt to Cardiff Bay.
The Taxpayer’s Alliance parked up with £783,023,547,667 showing on the clock.
Campaign manager, Emma Boon, said they wanted to show people the true figure of borrowing.
South Wales Echo - Debt Clock is in town
The Taxpayers' Alliance debt clock is visiting Cardiff today as part of its 1,300-mile tour of the UK. As the nation counts down to the General Election, the huge, lorry-mounted digital clock, which will be at the Roald Dahl Plass in Cardiff, is counting up the national debt.
Oxford Mail - Clock shows true scale of the country's debt
RESIDENTS in Oxford got a stark reminder of Britain’s national debt – in the form of a 23ft digital debt clock.
The lorry-mounted display, on a national tour organised by low tax campaign group The TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA), stopped in Gloucester Green on Tuesday so shoppers could take a look at the figures for themselves. The counter — which started at £781,512,328,767 on May 12 last year — rises by £5,168 per second. By the time the tour ends on April 26 the debt will have risen by £6,698,630,137, according to the TPA’s figures.
Jack FM - Digital Clock displays Britain's mounting debt in Bristol
People in Bristol are being encouraged to take notice of Britain's mounting debt.
A giant digital clock showing the total going up by £5,000 a second is in Bristol today.
The TaxPayers' Alliance Debt Clock is visiting the city as part of its 1,300 mile tour of the UK. Organisers say that in the run up to the General Election, they want people to realise how much debt the country is in.
Star FM - Digital Clock displays Britain's mounting debt in Bristol
The TaxPayers' Alliance Campaign Manager, Emma Boon wants people in Bristol to sit up and take notice:
"We are just going to get the message across to people that this is the size of the national debt. The reason we built this clock so big is to get that big impact to people, so that as they are driving past in their cars, as they are walking around Bristol they will see these huge red numbers ticking up. Those numbers are going up at a rate of £5,000 a second, and that is how much this British government is borrowing."
Daily Express - Brown blasted for secret £1,400 tax on families
The TaxPayers’ Alliance launched a new “debt clock” road show that will travel around the country during the election campaign showing the size of the country’s debt.
It calculated that the debt increased by nearly £4million during Mr Brown’s 13-minute speech yesterday. Matthew Elliott, chief executive, said: “They must wake up to the size and seriousness of the debt problem and start taking serious action to solve it.”
The Times - Martin Waller: Business Diary
This is the UK equivalent of the Times Square Debt Clock, tracking the mounting deficit, which toured London yesterday. The TaxPayers’ Alliance, which paid for it, said that it needed an articulated lorry to accommodate the true figure. The US version ran out of digits some time ago.
Britain's crippling debts were put centre stage in the election campaign today when a new ‘national debt clock’ began a tour of the country.
The custom-built clock, commissioned by the Taxpayers’ Alliance, will broadcast a rolling record of Britain’s national debt in red LEDs standing almost three feet high.
Orange News - 24hrs in Pictures
The TaxPayers' Alliance's digital Debt Clock, which counts up the national debt, passes the Treasury on Whitehall in London. After driving around the capital, the clock, which is believed to be the largest LED clock in the world, will be touring around 10 other cities in the UK including Oxford, Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham and Edinburgh.
In other money news, the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s (TPA) digital Debt Clock, which counts up the national debt, passed the Houses of Parliament in central London during the launch of a national tour. After driving around London, the clock, which is believed to be the largest LED clock in the world, will be touring around 10 other cities in the UK including Oxford, Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham and Edinburgh.
The TaxPayers' Alliance, a right-wing lobby, will take a lorry– mounted debt clock on a 1,300-mile tour of Britain. The clock ticks as the government borrows more cash
Daily Telegraph - Christopher Booker: Don't let the voters know we face bankruptcy
The Taxpayers' Alliance has tried to do it by pointing out that public debt is rising by £447,575,342 – virtually half a billion pounds – every day.
Daily Telegraph: Daniel Hannan - £780,172,602,739
That’s the level of Britain’s national debt. It’s rising at a rate of £5,169 per second, £310,212 per minute, £18,607,306 per hour, £446,575,342 per day.
Wall Street Journal - How Best to Nurture Fragile Recovery?
The situation in the U.K. isn't quite so perilous, although an organization known as the Taxpayers' Alliance has taken it upon itself to provide graphic illustration of the scale of the country's debt problem. It has constructed a giant lorry-mounted "debt clock" that will tour the country for two weeks during the election campaign.
When the lorry sets off next Monday, it will show the national debt at £781,512,328,767. That figure will rise at a rate of £446,575,342 every day so that, when the tour finishes on April 26, the debt will have clocked up to £788,210,958,904. And if that looks like a terrifying number, it is worth remembering that the Treasury's projections show it almost doubling by 2014-15.
BBC News Online - Live Coverage - General Election 2010
1523: News has reached us of a stunt by campaign group The Taxpayers' Alliance. It plans to travel 1,300 miles around Britain with a giant "debt clock" which will tick over as the Government borrows more money. The message, the group says, is "Wake up to the national debt!"
