Economics, like baking, is a tricky thing. I say this in full knowledge that my own economic understanding is comparable to making rice-crispie cakes. The BBC headed up tonight's 6 o'clock news with a report on the rate of economic growth in the country and Head Chef and Chancellor George Osbourne's response to it. Over the last 12 months, our economic cake, if you will, has risen by only 0.7% (compare with Western Australia's puffing up of 4.3% in the same period), but Big Cook defends his handling of our new culinary foray, citing numerous causes for a slow rate of recovery. The Royal Wedding meant people had an extra day to get pissed instead of working; public sector workers went on strike, leaving the ovens unattended, a fair few times; the Japanese earthquake slowed down (but, tellingly, did not stop) the rate of production of thousands of products sold in the UK. We're told the British Economic Cake is “more susceptible than others” to these ki