It’ll take more than shopping to save our debt-addled economy | Chris Bickerton

Britain's growth model is unsustainable, and has created scandalous levels of inequality - we should rely more on production, not consumption

The British growth model is well and truly broken. If any more evidence for this was needed, it came from figures last month showing that households had become net borrowers for the first time since records began in 1987. They took out almost 80bn in loans last year, the highest amount in 10 years. Only 37bn was deposited in banks. This has echoes of the pre-2008 boom period, and we all know how that ended.

The Office for National Statistics also reported that reliance on short-term unsecured loans, such as credit cards and payday loans, had exceeded 200bn: a record high. Nine out of 10 new car purchases are made using hire purchase or some kind of similar arrangement. Rather than serve as a corrective, the financial crisis and its aftermath has just reaffirmed that we remain addicted to this debt-fuelled route to growth.

Related: Pay growth slows to weakest in a year despite fall in joblessness