Whichever party wins the next UK election will inherit a public debt not seen since national records began and will have to make swathing cuts to bring debt back into line, one commentator has claimed.After it emerged that public debt hit £802 billion in July, Michael Ben-Gad, deputy head of the economics department at City University in London, told Bloomberg: "It's scorched earth.""Whoever gets into government next will have to make very large cuts in services and also raise taxes. You'll end up with U.S. levels of services and Scandinavian levels of tax," he added.With the deficit climbing by £8 billion in July, total public debt has now hit 56.8 per cent of gross domestic product, a higher percentage than was seen when the UK was forced to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund for an emergency loan.Meanwhile, in a research note this morning, Citibank has warned that sterling will be hit by a "toxic cocktail" of record public debt, weak growth prospects and the extension of quantitative easing.