This isn't just an economic recovery this is a Liberal Democrat economic recovery

IMF Head Christine Lagarde is the latest outside observer to praise Britain's economic recovery. Sitting on a panel with George Osborne yesterday she praised the UK Government's unyielding adherence to unprecedented austerity, the stern fortitude with which the harsh economic medicine had been delivered by an iron Chancellor, ignoring all calls for mercy…

Except no, she didn't. In fact quite the opposite. Far from crediting unbending austerity for the UK's exceptional recovery she applauded the UK Government for having shown flexibility and balance. She commended the UK for "adjusting to the economic reality in order to provide the right balance of spending cuts, revenue raising and in the order, in the proportion and in the pace that is appropriate to the economy."

She's right. For different reasons it often suits both Conservative and Labour voices to paint a picture in primary colours of undeviating adherence to Plan A. But this caricature is wrong. The reality is more nuanced and rather more Liberal Democrat. The Coalition has shown commendable flexibility, for example in reversing some of the capital spending cuts that were inherited from Labour once it became clear they were holding back the recovery. The Coalition has balanced cuts with carefully targeted stimulus. And above all it has been willing to forego substantial amounts of tax revenue and even slow the pace of austerity in order to help create jobs and encourage people to take them up.

This approach has worked. Liberal Democrat policies and influence have been at the heart of it. Three of the five key politicians deciding economic strategy in this Parliament have been Liberal Democrats. Liberal Democrats should be proud of this. It should be front and centre of our election campaign.

Raising the personal allowance has been central. The policy is rightly the top line of our achievements in government. But it is not pointed out often enough that its merits stretch well beyond simply putting more money in people's pockets (welcome though this is). One of the reasons we were so keen on it was its potential as an effective stimulus. As we noted in our Economic Recovery Plan back in 2009, there was strong evidence that a tax cut of this kind focused on households on low and middle incomes "will have the strongest economic effect as they are the ones whose spending is dropping most dramatically and who are least likely to lock away the extra money into savings."

The policy has also been influential in what some commentators have called Britain's 'jobs miracle'.

Back in June 2010 the Office of Budget Responsibility forecast - somewhat optimistically in some eyes - that UK employment would rise by around a million by 2015, to just over 30 million. In fact, figures out today show it has risen by two million, and now stands at just over 31 million (a record). The share of the working age population in work is at an all-time high. The unemployment rate is down by nearly a third. Numbers claiming Jobseekers Allowance have roughly halved.

This is the best job creation record of any government in living memory.

Of course no one single measure can be credited for this progress. Britain's flexible jobs market has undoubtedly helped. Vince Cable's impressive industrial strategy has surely played a role. Tax cuts and incentives for businesses to hire (such as the Employment Allowance) have had a substantial impact. But the huge investment in supporting people in low-paid work has been key. This has combined dramatic increases in the personal allowance with keeping more or less intact Gordon Brown's structure of in-work tax credits (indeed allowing the amount spent on them to rise from nearly £24 billion to nearly £30 billion), culminating in an exceptional level of subsidy for low-paid work.

CitiGroup's chief UK economist Michael Saunders - quoted extensively by Fraser Nelson of The Spectator in an article in January - set it out well:

With the increased levels of in-work tax credits since the early 2000s, plus the sharp rise in the personal tax allowance since 2010, the UK has greatly cut the overall tax burden on people in low-paid employment over the last 10-15 years… [T]he government subsidises people in low-paid work. Very few advanced economies have such a structure… These measures have been very successful in encouraging people to seek work…

In a nutshell, businesses have been incentivised to create jobs and people without work have been incentivised to take them.

There has been a wage squeeze - more or less inevitable in a recession - but the Coalition's income tax cut has served to mitigate it. When the tax take was lower than expected the Government was flexible, going for slower deficit reduction over a longer period rather than slashing budgets further or endangering the recovery with extra tax hikes.

To quote Saunders again: "in effect the government has chosen to borrow to support employment. Given the abundant evidence that a long spell out of work reduces people's future employability and earning power, such an investment in human capital has clear long-term economic and social merit in our view."

Absolutely right.

The overall tax burden has increased under the Coalition (the VAT increase being the single biggest increase). Departmental budgets have been cut. These were both necessary to get the deficit down. But austerity is far from the full story. Despite the unprecedentedly tight public finances significant resources have been found to stimulate growth, to tackle inequality (the richest households have seen the biggest increase in their burden since the Coalition took office) and to make work pay for those on lower incomes. This would not have happened to anything like the same extent without the Liberal Democrats in government. The personal allowance is merely the most significant of an array of Lib Dem-inspired measures which have contributed to the economic recovery and the 'jobs miracle', from green growth to apprenticeships.

It suits many, on both left and right, to airbrush the Liberal Democrats out of the economic recovery story. But they are wrong. This economic recovery has a Liberal Democrat stripe running through the middle of it. It belongs as much to the orange half of the coalition as the blue half. It belongs as much to Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and Danny Alexander as it does to David Cameron and George Osborne.

This hasn't been a conscience-less crunching of services. It has been a carefully calibrated rebalancing with growth, investment and job creation at its heart. That is a Liberal Democrat achievement. Lib Dems should shout about it from the rooftops.

* George Crozier was Senior Political Adviser to the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party, 1999-2007, and is a member of the executive of the Lewisham local party