Yeah, no-one expects the principal owed to be paid. They, the creditors (whomever they are), are content to collect the interest on what they lent. Spending £16 billion more on that than defending the nation seems alarming, but is it? It can't be for the government for while they preach austerity at home, this year it gave away £13.4 billion in Overseas Aid. Some context for that £13.4 billion: it is over four times the £3.2 billion it cost to to run the entire British prison estate in 2017, and less than £1 billion of that £13.4 billion would pay the annual wages of the 21,000 police officers who have been discarded over the last decade, the same officers who the country was supposedly unable to afford.