Krugman on British Debt/GDP levels

Paul Krugman keeps posting the graph above of British public debt to GDP (arguing that modern levels of British debt are not a problem - and by extension other countries with their own currency).

But shouldn't it be noted that prior to the 1950s,?Britain had a large empire which it could and did tax? ?I seem to remember that caused some annoyance in certain colonies. ?Thus the economic base that could be used to service British public debt was much larger than indicated by Gross Domestic Product, no?

Source: http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2011/12/krugman-on-british-debtgdp-levels.html

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