By Christian May In the years following the financial crisis, the UK faced an unemployment challenge. As the great recession bit, the unemployment rate started to rise – peaking at over 8 per cent in 2012, around about the time former chancellor George Osborne was being booed at the Olympics. However, by the end of that year the rate was falling – and it continued to fall for the next seven years. When analysing the British economy over this period, there aren’t many positives to point at. Wages stagnated, debt increased as a percentage of GDP, productivity was sclerotic and growth was letharg…