Even our diets are starting to have a distinctly war-time feel to them. Spam is back. At Waitrose, sales of beef shin are up 23pc. Ox cheek, lamb neck and fish heads are up 34pc, as consumers embrace the sort of offcuts that were once commonplace on British dinner plates. Apparently, it’s called “ancestral eating”.
With household incomes under a relentless squeeze, demand for goods and services is likely to take a dramatic hit, pushing the economy into recession. Output fell by 0.3pc in August and is expected to be negative for the third quarter.
Dame Sharon White, boss of John Lewis Partnership, which also owns Waitrose, likens the current situation to the 1970s, and predicts that the cost-of-living crisis will hit the venerable retailer harder than coronavirus.
The pain is being felt widely. There has been a profit warning at Primark, and Asos has launched a rescue plan, while Dunelm has warned of “a challenging winter”.
Marks & Spencer is closing dozens of clothing stores, removing another reason to visit struggling town centres. Though, as we report today, heavily-indebted Matalan is likely to be bailed out by its lenders, most will be left to fend for themselves.
In downturns, free marketeers like to talk about “creative destruction”. Britain has entrepreneurship in abundance but who would be brave enough to set up a new business today?
The odd pound shop or kebab takeaway will inevitably pop up here and there but otherwise, parades of boarded up buildings, and empty high streets will become commonplace – ghost town Britain in high definition.
