Anyone who’s encouraged by George Osborne’s claims of having steered the UK through the stormy waters of recession into a period of growth that’s “the largest in the G7” needs to read this piece: Comparative Recovery from Flip Chart Fairy Tales. Personally I don’t think GDP is a very useful measure of economic performance but if it’s the yardstick by which Mr Osborne measures his own performance then we might as well hold him to account against it.