On this day: Britain pays off its debt to America |
On 29 December 2006, the government paid its final instalment of its post-war loan repayments to America, writes Eliot Wilson
Nineteen years ago today, on 29 December 2006, the recently appointed Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Ed Balls, made an historic announcement. The government was paying the final instalment of the loan given by the United States in 1946. It had taken six decades to clear, and was six years overdue, but Britain proved it was a reliable debtor and a reliable ally.
“We honour our commitments to [the United States] now as they honoured their commitments to us all those years ago,” Balls proclaimed.
In governmental terms, the instalment of $83m was a small amount of money, but it was the coda of a much larger and more important story, yet one which was quickly and conveniently forgotten by the public many years ago.
The Second World War had been an almost unbearably long haul for Britain, from its declaration of war on Germany on 3 September 1939 to the surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945. British forces had fought around the world – Burma, the South Atlantic, Libya, Somaliland, the Arctic Ocean – and by the end of the conflict the armed forces numbered five million. Britain’s death toll was........