NICK Clegg pitched up in Glasgow this week to tell us the UK economy was growing stronger by the day.

What the Deputy Prime Minister didn't bother to highlight at the Liberal Democrat conference was that the UK, in stark contrast to countries such as the US and Germany, was still well adrift of its peak in output ahead of the Great Recession of 2008/09.

Many people in Glasgow, and for that matter elsewhere in Scotland and in other parts of the UK, would be justified in viewing Mr Clegg's comments as most audacious, against a backdrop of high unemployment and relentless welfare cuts which will act as a brake on future activity.

It is good to own up to mistakes early. The Conservative-LibDem Coalition has, however, favoured the "not for turning" approach in terms of its fiscal policy errors.

And the last few weeks have seen a remarkable change of tone, even for a Coalition which, alarmingly at times, seems to lack any self-doubt or capacity for critical analysis.

First Chancellor George Osborne and now Mr Clegg, in near-ebullient fashion, have attempted to claim their ill-judged policies have actually helped the economy, rather than having hindered it through lost growth and higher unemployment and lower tax revenues than a different strategy might have enabled.

They want to be careful they don't end up celebrating another dead cat bounce.

For all the talk of rebalancing we had in the wake of the Great Recession, the recent improvement in UK economic activity, from a low base, has been driven in significant measure by consumer spending, with export and business investment figures patchy at best.

But real incomes are still falling, and it is very difficult to see how this consumer splurge can be maintained. People cannot raid their savings indefinitely, and we have seen before the dangers of rapid growth of consumer debt. It was interesting to note that figures yesterday from the Office for National Statistics showed that UK retail sales dropped by 0.9% on a seasonally-adjusted basis in August, after jumping 1.1% in July.

With its particular mix of extreme austerity having failed miserably, and with Mr Osborne's vision of a "Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers" not materialising, the Coalition just could not resist the temptation to try to kick-start the flatlining economy using the housing market.

This is a dangerous route indeed.

Many, including Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, are already flagging the need to be alert to the danger of an unsustainable rise in house prices, against a backdrop of new Government schemes to fuel the residential property market and record-low base rates.

Mr Carney believes there are now mechanisms in place to defuse such a situation, but this view is untested.

We all know, from bitter experience on both sides of the Atlantic, the dangers which a runaway housing market can pose for the broader economy. It is not running away just yet, but the danger is very real, especially given recent forward guidance from the Bank of England about not raising UK base rates from 0.5% before unemployment on the International Labour Organisation measure falls to 7%.

In remarks which fail to chime with the self-satisfied tone of Messrs Clegg and Osborne, Mr Carney has been at pains to highlight the continuing challenges facing the UK economy.

It beggars belief that Mr Clegg is attempting to claim that people should be thanking the LibDems for a recovery which Mr Carney noted last month was the slowest on record.

Mr Carney highlighted the fact that, five years after the Great Recession and with UK base rates having been at a record low of 0.5% since March 2009, the UK economy still produces 3% less than it did five years ago.

And just what are those economic policies for which the LibDem part of the Coalition is to be thanked?

It's not the rise in value-added tax, a hike opposed vehemently by the LibDems ahead of the 2010 General Election, but embraced quickly enough after they got a sniff of the opportunity to form a coalition. This VAT rise has been a huge drag on the economy, at exactly the wrong time.

And let's not forget the cutting of the 50p top rate of income tax by the Conservative-LibDem coalition. This move always looked pretty unlikely to boost demand in the economy, although it will have helped boost the savings of high earners. Given that income could not have been moved from one tax year to another to avoid the top rate if this were in place permanently, the rationale put forward by Mr Osborne for abolishing the 50p band was, frankly, ridiculous.

Just about as ridiculous as Mr Clegg asking us to thank the LibDems for the recovery.