Does the deficit include borrowing?

[jsmoke]

So Osborne is borrowing £200B this year. Does this effectively get taken into account when working out the deficit?

In other words, if the government raises say £600B in tax this mean that we spend say £450B + £200B (borrowed) giving a deficit of £50B. These numbers are just examples, I think the deficit is a few dozens of billions for example.

But if the deficit is going down (I think it has been halved) then how come this article claims our debt is still rising, apparently, 'every baby born will now owe £25,000' as opposed to £17,000 before the last election.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...ddict-and-so-is-the-entire-Western-world.html

This must be due to borrowing rates and inflation.

So, we are borrowing more, the deficit is going down, with Osborne using this a scoring point, lending rates are low yet we are still piling up more and more debt?

 

[jsmoke]

Before the credit crunch, the debt-to-GDP ratio (which is the number that matters) had fallen under New Labour. We've got a medium term debt problem because of the bank bailouts not because of Brown's tendency to undertax.

Although some may argue that the 'light touch' regulation by New Labour partly caused the crash, which brings me to a point, how come Labour allowed more deregulation than the Tories, if they did, I thought the Tories were in even more favour of deregulation?

 

[jsmoke]

So what options does George Osbourne have. He is being pretty well slated at the moment due to his propsed cuts to reduce the deficit, but what else can he do, is it not a case of cut or pile up more and more debt?