No other Chancellor since records were kept has been so incompetent in extending a recession for so long. It isn’t that the depth of the shock was unprecedented. So the triumphalism over restoring output to its starting level is totally misplaced, especially given that the economy was growing along the typical growth path of 20th-century recoveries when the Coalition inherited it in 2010. I do recall saying in June 2010 “this Budget will kill the recovery stone dead”. And it did. Not since the South Sea Bubble in 1720 has Britain seen such a prolonged recovery.