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There is only so much credit, or blame, a government should get for our economic performance

Strictly in terms of outcomes, the record is rather good, for all the opposition’s attempts to obscure it. The economy is not, as claimed, in recession (it declined slightly early in the year, but has been growing ever since); middle class incomes are not stagnant (median household incomes are up 20 per cent after inflation since the mid-1990s); inequality is not growing (the share of income going to the top 1 per cent has been falling steadily since 2006, while the poverty rate is at an all-time low); and the federal budget is not in deficit (it showed a small surplus in the last fiscal year, and is on track to record another this time).

How much credit should the Conservative government get for all this? Not a lot — in the same way as it cannot fairly be blamed for the worldwide financial crisis of 2008, or the more recent global oil price collapse. Certainly the Conservatives’ handling of the crisis itself was adroit; less so the decision to plunge into deficit afterward, which the evidence shows had very little to do with the recovery that followed.

Indeed governments can do relatively little to alter the short-run performance of the economy, at least intentionally. They can, however, mess things up, by letting inflation and/or deficits to get out of hand. So the Conservatives also deserve credit — we do not mean this as faint praise — for not messing things up. Having needlessly got into deficit, they have spent the years since digging us out of it, on more or less exactly the schedule promised. This is a significant achievement.