After years of economic woes, this is the last thing we need

According to the GFK Consumer Confidence Index, shoppers remain pessimistic about their future economic prospects, and are reluctant to spend money on non-essential purchases. People's willingness to splash out on big-ticket purchases remains particularly weak, the study found.

This is perhaps inevitable given the unprecedented pressures the UK, and indeed most western nations, have faced over the past few years. The virtual shut-down of the economy during the coronavirus pandemic was bound to have a long-term impact on the economy. That was then followed by the war in Ukraine,  which caused the cost-of-living crisis. And the less said about the Liz Truss mini-budget the better.

But it hardly helps that the present Prime Minister and his Chancellor have spent most of the past five months talking up the prospects of impending gloom, and then delivering a Budget which appears to have sucked the last vestige of any confidence people might have had in the UK economy.

Curry's is the latest retailer to warn of price increases as a direct result of the Chancellor's double-whammy of a hike in National Insurance, and a rise to the national minimum wage. The electronics giant says these two measures will directly add £21 million to its costs, with a further £9 million passed on through partner businesses, and an extra £2 million in business rates.

The company's chief executive says government policy will 'add costs quickly and materially', depress investment, and discourage the hiring of new staff, and lead to investment being transferred abroad and human employees being replaced by robots.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and we don't know whether these problems could have been avoided by a different approach in the Budget.

What we do know is, that after years of difficulties from events largely outside the UK's control, this latest setback to the economy is the last thing we need.