Governments across the globe have blamed war and the threat of war for poor economic performance.

ECONOMIST: Helping Iraq, and the world, to recover | The

American voters blamed Mr Bush senior for poor economic performance on his watch.

ECONOMIST: Taxing times | The

The growth is flattered by poor economic performance last year, when the economy was hit by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (Sars).

BBC: NEWS | Business | Singapore economy in growth spurt

The internal tasks address Europe's poor economic performance.

ECONOMIST: The European Union after Ireland's vote

Employers are being asked to help workers boost their numeracy skills amid fears that poor maths is blighting Britain's economic performance.

BBC: Workplace maths challenge aims to boost numeracy

Of course, a lot of this disappointment has a single cause: the poor performance of the economy, and the OBR's judgment that a lot of the economic ground we had lost since 2007 we were not going to get back - meaning the books were in a worse state in 2010 than the coalition realised at the time.

BBC: An economic mid-term review

Last year a report into the economic development agency's performance found its achievements were not clear because of inadequate data and poor evaluation.

BBC: NEWS | UK | Scotland | Call to scrap enterprise agency