The Bank of England's new financial policy committee (FPC) has called for new definitions to be used relating to the word debt after concerns were raised today by UK banks' exposure to the eurozone debt crisis.
The Bank's governor Sir Mervyn King said the debt problems of Greece and other countries posed "the most serious and immediate risk" to UK banks but to get this message across to the public at large then the word debt would need to be graded to reflect the seriousness of the situation.
'After nearly four years of economic struggle here and around the world we feel that the British public have become some what complacent to the seriousness of debt related issues that occuring around the world such as the current crisis in Greece. In line with the same idea as the system used to warn of iminent nuclear attack known as defcon, the seriousness of a debt situation will be tracked by a new system called debtcon with levels rated from 1 to 5 with 5 being the worst case scenerio'.
To give people an idea of how this system would work Mr King highlighted some examples from the past to show what situations would justify the appropiate debtcon level set against it.
Debtcon1: 1997 Gordon Brown becomes chancellor of the exchequer threatening Norman Lamont's position as the worst chancellor in british history.
Debtcon2: 2002 The three stooges make a comeback as Greece,Spain and Ireland join the euro.
Debtcon3: 2007 Northern Rock goes belly up starting off the domino toppling affect of other high street banks going tits up that all need huge bailouts from the government to keep them all going. This all leaves the two up two down owned by poor old Bob Smith of Trowbridge worth £50,000 grand less than he paid for it the year before.
Debtcon4: 2008 The best hope for the world to sort out it's subsequent recession is left to Gordon Brown who had long since taken Lamont's crown of
the worst chancellor in history before becoming a candidate for the worst prime minster in history.
Debtcon5: 2011 Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is seen outside the greek parliamentary building asking passers by for the price of a cup of tea which the way things are going will be about 500 euro's next week.