2. Review of last time As on the previous occasion, I would like to start today by recognising that accountability includes being accountable for what was said last time. I will do this by reviewing how the past six months have turned out against the background of what I told the Committee we were expecting last November.
At that time, I summarised our expectations by saying that I thought 1997 would prove to be a good year for economic growth, with GDP growing by about 4 per cent, that inflation would remain below 2 per cent for a while, but with a tendency to pick up as we went through 1998, and that there was a good chance that unemployment would decline.