Osborne’s voteless recovery?

This is a strange old recovery. The News of the World has an interesting ICM poll today, showing that 66 per cent think the economy is getting worse. It’s not: GDP is growing and we have the second-highest job creation in the G7. Rather than losing jobs to China, we’re flogging Coventry-made Jaguars to Beijing billionaires (one of the random gems uncovered by our new Twitter feed @LocalInterest). So why is everyone so glum? And why do 52 per cent think that David Cameron and George Osborne are doing “a bad job” with the economy?
 
In theory, Osborne’s recovery is coming on well. His “cuts” agenda is simply a souped-up version of Alistair Darling’s, but Osborne cuts about 1 per cent a year faster. It suits both Labour and Tories to pretend this isn’t the case, perhaps why both are careful never to quantify the cuts. But GDP growth has returned, and a million new jobs should be added over this parliament.