At the start of Britain’s election cycle, I was quite proud of my compatriots. Elections are usually a time of rash promises, where political parties try to outbid each other, promising more goodies paid for by the government and lower taxes.

But this time it was different. Britain, it seemed, had matured. The Conservative Party’s election message was essentially, We’ve cut spending, but we’re still living beyond our means, so there’ll be more cuts to come. Then the Labor Party—traditionally the party of more government spending—adopted a similar message, disagreeing with Conservative cuts while at the same time promising to control spending and warning that it would have to make some different choices.

Borrowing money in order to give out goodies was apparently no longer the way to win an election.

But this appearance of maturity lasted only a matter of weeks. Calls for restraint and balance in spending did not inspire many voters. Partly because of its calls for spending restraint, the Labor Party found its popularity in Scotland stolen by a party promising massive spending. The Scottish National Party (snp) is now forecast to win every single seat in Scotland, according to one poll.

So now British voters are promised 30 hours of free child care a week for parents of 3- and 4-year-olds, that people earning the minimum wage will pay no tax, an extra £8 billion (us$12 billion) for the National Health Service, free access to a doctor seven days a week, and that rail ticket prices will not go up for the next five years—and all that just from the Conservatives, supposedly the party of responsible spending. The Labor Party, while still acknowledging the need for spending cuts, has called Conservative plans “extreme and ideological”—for cutting too much.

But even the Labor Party is too miserly for some. The snp wants an extra £180 billion ($280 billion) more spending over the next five years.

It’s worth taking a moment to consider Britain’s financial situation—something none of the major parties are really being honest about.

After the financial crisis, government borrowing for 2009-2010 was at a higher level than at any time since World War ii. The year after that, again, borrowing was higher than any time between World War ii and the start of the financial crisis. For the next two years, borrowing was at a level seen only once or twice since World War ii. The British government has been borrowing money at a rate unprecedented in peace time—all the while talking about “cuts” and “austerity.”

Not a penny of this money has been paid back. The British government talks about “cutting the deficit”—but too few people understand what it really means. It sounds like the government is paying back the debt. In fact, the prime minister received an official reprimand from the United Kingdom Statistics Authority for making it sound like this is what he was doing. It’s not. The government is merely borrowing a little less money each year than it was the year before. Even with all the so-called cuts, the debt is growing quickly.

Britain is now in the most debt it has been in, relative to its economy, since 1967. The only reason the debt was so high back in the ’60s is that the nation was still paying off the debt it accumulated during World War ii and its aftermath.

“It almost beggars belief that more than 10 years after the banking crisis, the public finances are still going to be in deficit,” assistant editor of the Daily Telegraph Jeremy Warner wrote recently. “There will be another downturn at some stage, possibly quite soon, and when it comes, there will be nothing left in the fiscal cannon to fire at it. We’ve been so slow to repair the damage from the last crisis that we’ve left ourselves completely unprepared for the next.”

Warner was writing after the International Monetary Fund (imf) warned that Britain would, in all probability, not even begin to pay back its debts until sometime after 2020. “Don’t forget that the latest imf forecasts were drawn up before the love-bombing of pre-election promises got fully under way,” warns Warner. “If these are factored in, then the shortfall looks much worse.”

Britain’s government debt is dire, yet voters are crying out for more and more spending from the state. The adage that a democracy can only last until the majority discovers it can vote itself “free” money from the government has proven true.

It’s a sad state to be in and also a clear demonstration of the importance of national character. Certainly the politicians have a role to play in Britain’s debt crisis. They could do much more to be open and honest about the problems facing the country, but it’s in no one’s interest to do so. The Conservatives want to pretend they are fixing the economy and those on the left want to pretend there is plenty of money to spend.

But a good chunk of the blame also lies with Britain’s voters. Our politicians tried to tell us that we needed to use our money responsibly. And how did we respond? We turned to extreme left parties like the Greens and snp. That’s a big oversimplification of the shift to smaller parties happening in the UK, but it’s certainly accurate to say that too many voters do not want responsible spending.

Instead of rash promises to spend, Britain’s debt should be one of the biggest issues in this election. Here’s what Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote about the danger of America’s debt:

Do you know what the single greatest threat to America is? During the American presidential election campaign, President Obama said it was international terrorism. Republican candidate Mitt Romney warned it was a nuclear Iran. Other experts scream that it’s global warming. Border patrol agents say it’s Mexican drug cartels. Perhaps it’s a North Korean nuclear attack, Russia’s military resurgence, or a Chinese cyberattack.Those threats are real. But there is a danger far greater than all of the above combined.Adm. Mike Mullen, former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, believes he sees the threat. The biggest danger to America today, he says, is our debt …. Mullen says that, eventually, our debt will leave us defenseless.

The Trumpet has warned for years about America’s debt. Almost every single word of that warning applies to Britain too (and we’ve certainly had a good number of articles on Britain’s economy as well). America’s president makes outrageous comments like, “We don’t have a spending problem.” Meanwhile, British leaders acknowledge this problem and talk about cuts. This can make it easy to assume that Britain is getting its act together. It is not. The talk about cuts is just talk. And now voters are rejecting even that, and putting Britain on the path to even more reckless spending. Britain’s voters are simply not willing to address this problem. To learn where this will inevitably lead, read Mr. Flurry’s article “‘We Don’t Have a Spending Problem.’”