More British retailers will go bust in the coming months, others are likely to shed jobs and sales look set for a prolonged slump, the head of the British Retail Consortium told Reuters on October 4, warning of 18 months of hard times for the high street.
Stephen Robertson, who represents many of Britain's biggest retailers, said consumer morale was heading towards levels not seen since the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers despite near-unprecedented levels of discounting in shops.
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government is looking to the private sector to ignite Britain's stalling economy while ministers slash billions of pounds in spending and hundreds of thousands jobs in the public sector over the next four years to tackle a record budget deficit.
There has been little sign so far that the private sector will expand rapidly enough to offset a shrinking state - Britain's economy has hardly grown for the last three quarters.
Robertson said the government needed to do more to help businesses take up the slack. "It's imperative the government doesn't put us under extra pressure through regulation and business rate hikes," he said.
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