"The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around 20,000 pounds. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child"
About this Quote
The most loaded move is the baby. “Every British child is born owing…” turns an abstract liability into a visceral image of inherited burden, borrowing the emotional force of generational injustice. It’s politically canny because it makes austerity feel like protection, not deprivation: cuts become the humane option because the alternative is pictured as stealing from infants. “Negative equity” does similar rhetorical work, importing a term from the mortgage crisis to suggest a nation underwater, trapped, and desperate for rescue.
The closing comparison - interest servicing versus education - is the true blade. It’s not a neutral warning; it’s a forced-choice narrative that implies debt crowds out the very future the state is supposed to build. Subtext: your government’s spending isn’t merely high, it’s self-cannibalizing. Context matters here: this is a post-financial-crisis argument aimed at delegitimizing stimulus-era borrowing and cementing a common-sense frame for deficit reduction. Whether the numbers are debatable is almost beside the point; the intent is to make fiscal restraint feel like the only ethical position left.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Hannan, Daniel. (2026, January 17). The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around 20,000 pounds. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-truth-prime-minister-is-that-you-have-run-out-44308/
Chicago Style
Hannan, Daniel. "The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around 20,000 pounds. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-truth-prime-minister-is-that-you-have-run-out-44308/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The truth, Prime Minister, is that you have run out of our money. The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around 20,000 pounds. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-truth-prime-minister-is-that-you-have-run-out-44308/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.




