Good morning: Was 2019 really the “worse year on record” for the UK’s shopkeepers? That is the extraordinary claim made by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) this morning, which has released its December sales data overnight. Never mind that total sales actually increased by 1.9 per cent in December (which seems pretty respectable given that inflation is running at 1.8 per cent) once the BRC “adjusts” for the timing of black Friday total sales actually declined 0.9 per cent compared with the same period in 2018, claims the lobby group. Year-on-year 2019 sales were 0.1 per cent lower - but still higher than 2017. That’s enough for the BRC’s Helen Dickinson to argue that this is the “worst year on record” and call on the…

Source: The Times January 09, 2020 09:11 UTC