By most of the usual statistical yardsticks, the UK was the best-performing of the major EU economies.

During the general election campaigns of 2001 and 2005, the government successfully sought re-election largely on the basis of its record as manager of the economy over the previous four years.

Viewed in terms of the ‘fundamentals’, it is difficult to deny that former Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown’s ‘prudent’ stewardship made a major contribution to creating this benign environment.

There is, however, scope to debate the extent to which it all started when this government first came to office in 1997 and, given the speed at which the economy unwound shortly after he left, the soundness of the foundations on which this growth was based can be questioned.

But there is no denying that the UK’s economic record improved, as the crude ‘Misery Index’ (found by adding the inflation rate to the unemployment rate) measure below suggests.

In terms of the key indicators there was been a significant turn round in the UK’s performance after the high inflation, high unemployment, boom-bust years of the 1970s, when it was generally regarded as the weakest economy in Europe.

By the second half of the 1990s, it had become, by several measures, the strongest, a position it has probably retained even in the current turbulence.

Although the UK is now looking vulnerable in certain important areas, there is broad agreement between the major political parties on the main thrust of economic policy. In many ways, since both parties take the same general line on macro policy, the management of the economy is no longer the main item on the political agenda.