I am not a big fan of statistics, after all if you can't lie with statistics you're not really trying. However for those of you who can't be bothered to plough through the links provided by Jim Carroll here's a synopsis of one of them. It's from the BBC so I can't really attack it as dodgy at source. I'll leave it to someone else to do the other one.

Inflation down from nearly 25% in 1976 to approximately 2% in 1993. Isn't that a good thing?

In the same period unemployment doubled from 1.5 milliom to 3. Obviously not a good thing but an inevitable result of resizing our industrial base all in one go. This could have been managed over a fifty year period had the unions allowed anyone to attempt it, and the dreadful effects that came from this might have been ameliorated.

Coal production came down. Big deal. What's the point in mining it if you don't use it? I don't remember much talk about CO2 emissions back then but didn't we still have coal gas at the start of that period and North Sea gas at the end?

GDP Two recessions and two booms. The commentary links the the recessions to the attempts to reduce inflation. In the long term inflation has been reduced. I remember thinking at the time of Blaire's election that it was kind of ironic that the Tories had finally stabalised the economy only to be thrown out and unable to build on it. Is the same thing about to happen again?

Interest rates. A 17% high in 1980 down to just over 5% in 1993. Anyone fancy paying 17% on their mortgage?

Council houses. She sold em. Yes OK and she also kept the money. She was, of course, at war with Labour councils or rather they were at war with her. I presume she had no intention of funding such a vigorous opposition.

House prices. They went up until 1989 then started to fall back again. I wouldn't be surprised if they went up again later on.

So what exactly does any of this prove except that the economy was a real basket case when she came into office and it was more or less sorted before Blaire and Browne got their chance to screw it all up again.