What people mean, and what the numbers can say.

Gilts mature. The government pays them off by selling new ones, unless it is running a surplus large enough to do it in cash, which it is not. The new gilt clears at the yield investors will accept that day. A higher yield means a higher interest bill on the debt being refinanced, and less room for everything else the government spends on.

That is a price, not a veto, and not a closed door. Investors do not set tax rates. They do set the terms on which the next auction clears. The constraint shows up in the chart of how much falls due, and when, and in the interest bill below.

Someone who sells, or who will not buy unless the yield is higher, because they doubt the fiscal or inflation outlook. They have no office and no vote. Their only instrument is the price. The day people use as the example is 23 September 2022: the yield jumped, and the jump was not matched in the US or in the safest euro-area bonds. See that day.

Between 2009 and 2021 the Bank of England bought gilts through the Asset Purchase Facility, paying for them with new reserves. The Treasury indemnifies the Facility. While the Bank holds a gilt, the interest on it largely comes back to the public sector, and the debt has not vanished: it has changed hands. Since 2022 the Bank has been letting gilts mature and selling some, so private investors have to hold more of the stock again. The wedge is on the holders chart. The Facility's stock is not free. When the bonds it bought yield less than the Bank pays on reserves, the indemnity is a cost to the Treasury.

Partly. Domestic holders and the Bank are one part. Overseas holders are another, and they can sell. "Ourselves" also hides a transfer: taxpayers service the debt, and the coupon is income for the holder, which may be a pension fund or a foreign reserve manager. The sector split is the honest stopping point. Named beneficial owners are not published.

Three different things move it. Conventional coupons are fixed until a gilt is refinanced. Index-linked gilts add an inflation uplift, accrued now and paid as the bond approaches redemption, which is why a month's bill can rise with the Retail Prices Index even when yields do not. And the short end is refinanced often, so it picks up the current yield quickly. The Office for National Statistics series below, where it loaded, is that jumpy total. It is not the yield.

No. A fixed mortgage is priced from the point on the curve that matches the length of the fix, plus a margin for the lender. A five-year fixed mortgage is based on the five-year point. A two-year fix is based on the two-year point. The ten-year gilt is the usual headline, and it is the wrong object for a household loan. A variable mortgage does follow Bank Rate. A five-year fix can move on a day when Bank Rate does not.