ANYONE listening to Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser at this week's National Business Convention could have been forgiven for looking at him askance, or even pinching an arm to check they were not dreaming, as he painted the picture of a UK economy in fine fettle.

Mr Fraser talked about how a vote for independence last week would have seen Scotland "break away from what is the fastest-growing economy in Europe".

At some points in recent times, analysis has shown the UK to be the fastest-growing economy in western Europe, so Mr Fraser is not wrong in his assertion. Figures last week showed Ireland's economic growth had been much faster than the UK in the year to June. That said, accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers has talked about the UK being the fastest-growing "large" economy in western Europe this year.

Whatever the case, the justification for an askance look at Mr Fraser or a check to see it was not a dream had much more to do with the absence of context than the MSP's specific assertion about the UK being the fastest-growing economy in Europe.

The rosy view of the UK economy presented by Mr Fraser would surely have made even Pollyanna, the eternally upbeat character created by author Eleanor H Porter, blush.

What Mr Fraser did not bother to touch upon was the crucial point, made by none other than Bank of England Governor Mark Carney in August last year, that the UK economic recovery had at that stage been the slowest on record. In fact, it has taken the UK six years to regain its pre-recession level of output.

The extremely protracted and painful nature of the recovery almost certainly had a great deal to do with the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition's ill-judged austerity programme. Not only was it overdone, the mix was entirely wrong.

In contrast, Germany and the US returned to their pre-recession levels of output relatively swiftly.

The UK did significantly better in the second quarter than Germany, which suffered a surprise contraction in gross domestic product, and there are those in Mr Fraser's party who will likely be chuffed about this.

However, it is important to put these contrasting second-quarter showings in the context of how the two countries have fared since the world financial crisis, which first reared its ugly head in 2007, ushered in global recession.

Anyone who underestimates the potential of the German economy, with its large manufacturing base, does so at their peril, and plenty of people have made this mistake before.

What is more, the mix of the rapid UK economic growth in recent quarters is somewhat hair-raising.

The economy has been stimulated by huge moves by the UK Government to inflate the housing market. These measures have delivered rapid house price growth in plenty of time for next year's general election. And the evidence is that this housing market boom has helped ensure debt-laden consumers have kept on spending, at a time when UK base rates remain stuck at a record low of 0.5 per cent.

Chancellor George Osborne talked in his March 2011 Budget about "a Britain carried aloft by the march of the makers", and supposedly put in place policies to achieve this.

However, the UK's export performance has, overall, been pretty woeful. Business investment has also taken a horrendously long time to rise, although at least it is finally moving in the right direction.

In spite of the evident shortcomings of the Coalition's economic policies, there is recent survey evidence that many people like the Conservatives being in charge of the economy.

And much of the business community appears to have been pretty pleased with the economic policies of Prime Minister David Cameron and Mr Osborne.

Perhaps the response of the business community is no great surprise, given the Coalition has delivered deep cuts in corporation tax, the lowering of the top rate of income tax, and sweeping changes to employment legislation. And the business community has for the most part over the decades kept faith with the Conservatives, in spite of the calamitous Thatcher-era boom and bust under former Tory chancellor Nigel Lawson.

But the public's reaction is perhaps more surprising, especially given that households are having to cope with the continuation of an extremely long period of falling real incomes.

And there could well be a bit more of a challenge for the Conservatives, in terms of their relationship with business, if they win the next election.

The catastrophic implications of a UK exit from the European Union after a referendum in 2017 would make even the worst-case scenarios conjured up by the Better Together campaign for an independent Scotland pale into insignificance. It was interesting to hear British Chambers of Commerce warn, within hours of the Scottish referendum result, about the dangers of any UK exit from the EU.

As we know by now Mr Cameron, in terms of his description of the Queen's reaction to the referendum result, likes his feline analogies.

He can be sure the business community will not be purring if he delivers an exit from the EU.