They tell you the debt is £3 trillion. That is the number they want you to argue about. Taxpayers Alliance did the real maths. Unfunded pension liabilities. PFI. Promises stacked on a quiet set of books with no money sitting behind them. £11.7 trillion. What is PFI. I hear you say. A private firm builds it. Hospital. School. Prison. Motorway. Even a military satellite. The state does not pay up front. It pays for thirty years at a worse rate than a gilt. You do not own it while you pay. By the time the keys come back you have paid for it several times over. Royal London and Barts. Build cost about £1.1 billion. Payback over £7 billion. Unfunded pensions are simpler. People paid in their whole working lives. There is no pot. Just a promise and your tax later. They could not even keep the money collected for the people who earned it. £3 trillion on the news. £11.7 trillion on your children. Worst capital allocators on the planet. It was never their money. So they never treated it like it was.