The UK is not about to go bankrupt or collapse into becoming a debt-serving ‘zombie economy’ so don’t let government borrowing figures worry you.

The simple fact is that the high amount of borrowing in October was to be expected in a period before the changes made by Rachel Reeves in her Budget (made on October 30, remember) could be felt.

And it will be some time before the full effect of those changes is felt; the Labour government’s prediction is that debt won’t start falling until the 2029-30 financial year.

So don’t start blaming public sector workers like nurses for the pay rises Reeves has given them – and if you are a nurse or other public sector worker, don’t let anybody make you feel guilty.

These people deserved their pay rises – and the simple fact is that the economy will benefit hugely from them.

As some of the lowest-paid workers in the UK, those in the public sector have to spend a larger proportion of their earnings than others, just to stay alive.

This money then filters up through many different pairs of hands, adding value to the economy as a whole, before finally being taxed out again.

It highlights on of the Tories’ biggest mistakes – giving huge wodges of cash to the already-rich in the hope that it would “trickle down” to help poorer people. That never happens; instead these rich beneficiaries banked the cash in their offshore accounts or invested it in assets that would have been better kept in public hands, the passive income they generated being used for the good of us all.

So if borrowing stood at £17.4 billion in October and was the second-highest October figure since records began in 1993, that is a result of Conservative economic mismanagement.

If interest payments on government debt hit £9.1 billion last month, the highest October figure since monthly records began in 1997, that is because the Tories sold off all the government assets from which income could have been used to pay some of it off.

If borrowing in the current (2024-25) financial year hit £96.6 billion – £1.1 billion more than at the same time last year – it is because the Conservatives haemorrhaged public money like water leaking from the Victorian pipe system they singularly failed to repair.

If net debt (the former measure of money owed by the government) is an eye-watering £2.8 trillion, we should remember that the vast majority of that is owed to the Bank of England, which is owned by the government; it is cash that the government owes to itself. At 97.5 per cent of the size of the UK’s economy, it is entirely manageable.

And besides, Reeves changed the rules so that the current measure of money owed by the government is the so-called “snuffle” – PSNFL or Public Sector Net Financial Liabilities – which stands at only 83.7 per cent of the size of the economy, providing more scope for the Labour government to borrow and invest the money in (hopefully) profitable projects.

In other words – in economic terms – there is absolutely nothing to worry about… yet.