Basic economics is beyond the Shadow Chancellor

After watching Ed Balls on Newsnight last night (16th March 2011) I have to come to the conclusion that basic economics is beyond the Shadow Chancellor.
He basically said that, you don't try to pay off your mortgage in 4 years you pay it off over 20 or so. Very good Ed and quite correct. However, as shadow chancellor I would expect him to know that the deficit is what we are adding to our mortgage. The "mortgage" UK PLC has is £trillions, (those boom years of 1997 - 2008 and record tax take? blown it and a few billion more!) UK PLC are currently on an interest only mortgage and the interest on the original mortgage is adding each and every year by the amount of the deficit.

To put it into Ed speak. It is like having a maxed out credit card and not even making the minimum payments to cover the interest being charged, therefore the debt goes up.