Surprise fall in retail sales ahead of Christmas signals cost of living gloom
The ONS upwardly revised data covering October when sales bounced back after a hit from the impact of widespread closures for the Queen's funeral in September.
But while budgets are squeezed by rising bills, hopes were raised earlier this week that inflation had peaked after the core consumer prices index measureThe Bank of England gave some support to that theory on Thursday after it slowed the pace of interest rate rises,Andrew Bailey, the governor, pointed to a"glimmer" of hope that the worst was behind us - also expressing hope that the economy was performing a bit better than the Bank had expected.
The issue is also compounded by the wave of strikes - mostly over pay - dominating the landscape with unions in many cases seeking increases at least in line with inflation.A closely watched measure of consumer confidence, compiled by GfK, showed a slight improvement this month despite remaining near a record low level.
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