Rachel Reeves is living under a rock if she thinks the country is growing, says MAGGIE PAGANO
That came to mind after the wildly contrasting interpretations of the GDP figures for the second quarter to June which showed output rising by a paltry 0.3 per cent.
Somehow or other this statistic allowed the Chancellor to wear her Alice in Wonderland spectacles, welcoming the figures as positive, showing the fastest growth in the first half of this year among the G7 countries.
That, as Twain might also have said, is baloney.
Or, as the Conservative shadow chancellor Mel Stride put it, Rachel Reeves is living under a rock if she thinks the country is growing, accusing her of 'economic vandalism'.
But Reeves was able to get away with spinning the 0.3 per cent number because it was marginally better than forecasts which had been lower due to fears over the impact of President Trump's trade wars.
Yet the reality is that the second quarter showed a sharp slowdown from the first, when GDP growth was 0.7 per cent. That's a drop by any other name.
What Reeves didn't say, however, was that the second quarter was actually bloated by increased Government spending which disguised a sharp fall in capital investment and trade in the private sector.
And if you listen to business chiefs, the shake-out across industry sectors because of April's higher National Insurance and other taxes has only just got going.
There is more pain to come. As this week's jobs market numbers showed, firms are shedding labour fast ,with vacancies falling by 44,000 in the three months to June, taking the number down to below pre-lockdown levels.
The GDP figure for the month of June alone saw a rise of 0.4 per cent. But that was mainly because of a tiny jump in construction and services.
It's doubtful that this rise in construction can be maintained as housebuilding fell sharply last month while concrete sales were at their lowest since 1963.
Hardly a great sign for healthy economic growth. More worrying still is that the Office for National Statistics figures also reveal that output per hour worked in the three months to June was 0.8 per cent lower than a year earlier.
This is the steepest annual decline since the third quarter of last year, showing once again how weak productivity remains one of the UK's most structural and chronic problems.
If Reeves raises taxes again in the Budget to fill her £50billion black hole, you can be sure that consumption, investment and productivity have further to fall while inflation continues to rise. And that leads to the worst of all worlds: stagflation.
Isle of Gas
CentricA chief executive Chris O'Shea and his counterpart at US investment firm Energy Capital Partners have come up with a smart deal which should help keep the lights and heating on for decades.
The two energy companies are buying the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal on the Isle of Grain from National Grid, with plans to expand facilities.
Centrica already plays a critical role in our energy mix, supplying up to a quarter of all households with gas.
Buying the Isle of Grain site (the name comes from the old English greon for gravel) is a significant move because LNG is expected to play a much greater role in the country's energy supplies.
Already Europe's biggest regasification facility, it's being expanded to meet up to a third of all UK gas demand.
Although most of our gas comes from Norway via pipelines, this terminal brings LNG from suppliers such as Qatar and Algeria.
As O'Shea says, developing the Isle of Grain will bring greater energy security, as gas is going to be needed for decades.
If only Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary who wants to close down and ban new North Sea oil and gas licences, understood such basic facts.
Stop the kite-flying
Aviva boss Amanda Blanc is right to warn that threats over more inheritance tax changes are causing a flurry of calls to the insurer and sleepless nights among customers.
The same happened a year ago when the Chancellor threatened a pension tax raid.
The Treasury has always loved kite-flying. But it's a childish way of fleshing out reactions and it's not good for business.
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