British official debt worst since 1978

1978 and another dreadful Labour Prime Minister. Don't remember? Then read this from Wikipedia: a break down with the unions occurred again in 1978, leading to the Winter of Discontent, and eventually leading to the end of the Labour Government, then being led by Jim Callaghan. The extreme industrial strife along with rising inflation and unemployment led Britain to be nicknamed as the "sick man of Europe." This however is from a newspaper report this afternoon which ignores much of the country's real debts: The UK’s net debt reached £697.5bn at the end of December, equivalent to 47.5pc of gross domestic product. That is the biggest proportion since 1978, when net debt was 49.1pc of GDP, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.