There's basically been a transfer from public debt to private debt (the most obvious example of this is in university tuition fees). Private debts have been escalating significantly over the past few decades.
There's a difference between debt and deficit. A deficit is the difference between incomings and spending in one year. Debt is deficits added up over the years. The Tories initial plan was to get rid of the deficit in the 2010-15 parliament; they actually only got rid of about half of it (which...