The UK’s chattering, political and investing classes are all worked up about public debt and how to screw the poor to make the UK solvent.
Right on cue. the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, delivered a budget including spending cuts and tax rises that by 2027-28 will be worth £62bn ($73bn), or 2.1% of GDP.
Club Med countries have bigger public debt holes than the UK but are not so worked up. It’s all mind tricks.
Thoughts of a Cynical Investor 
Japan is over 200% but the issue is not the overall public debt but the primary deficit or the funding gap. UK’s a lot worse than the rest. So the chattering classes are not wrong. The principal problem is UK’s tax take is comparatively low while its public spending commitment is as high.