JD Sports sales slump in UK as fragile consumer confidence concerns retailers

JD Sports has revealed a slump in UK sales, amid mounting concern that brittle consumer confidence will damage retailers.Revenues in established UK shops fell 6.1% as the leisurewear company struggled to beat strong trading last year, when it received a boost from the men’s Euro 2024 football tournament and women’s growing taste for sports footwear such as Adidas’s Samba and Gazelle.The company said it had invested in cutting prices online amid “tough comparatives”, especially on footwear for women and children.The sales slide in the UK in the 13 weeks to 2 August contributed to a 3% fall in underlying group sales in the period, with sales increasing only in the Asia Pacific region

People in the UK: how have you been affected by the rise in food prices?

Food inflation in the UK has hit 4.2% this month with there being a “significant increase” in the cost of staple foods such as butter and eggs. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said prices had risen at their fastest pace for 18 months.Those on low incomes are most affected by food price inflation because they spend disproportionately more of their monthly budgets on the essentials of life compared with the wealthiest, who have more room to cut discretionary spending.How do you feel about food inflation? Have the price rises changed your shopping or eating habits?You can tell us how you have been affected by the increase in food prices by filling in the form below, or messaging us

Tough talk from Streeting – but he still needs a deal with big pharma

Wes Streeting gets top marks for fighting talk in his battle with the pharmaceutical companies over the price of prescription medicines. After the health secretary walked away from talks with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) on Friday, he stuck the boot in. The “shortsighted” pharma industry had rejected “a serious and generous” offer, he said. It should be more “collaborative” instead of making “unaffordable” demands. The government could not allow British patients and taxpayers to be ripped off

Post-Brexit licences for exporting food to EU cost UK firms up to £65m last year

UK companies spent up to £65m last year on licences to export food and agricultural products to the EU – costs that the government is promising to eliminate as part of a new deal to be agreed by 2027.Government figures released on Tuesday showed it issued 328,727 such licences last year, at a cost of between £113 and £200 each. That would put the total cost to business at somewhere between £37m and £65m.Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister in charge of European negotiations, will on Wednesday pledge to eliminate such costs as he promises a new agreement with the EU in the next 18 months.In an event at the Spectator offices in London to be hosted by the leading Brexiter Michael Gove, Thomas-Symonds will make a vocally political argument for becoming closer to the EU

Trump is out to end the Fed’s autonomy. Here’s how he’s trying to get his way

When Donald Trump stepped up his campaign to influence the US Federal Reserve, he traveled less than a mile from the White House, to tour the central bank’s headquarters. But as the administration considers how to actually get what it wants, one of the US president’s acolytes looked about 500 miles south.A condominium above the Four Seasons hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, is at the heart of an extraordinary battle over the future of the Fed, and the independence of its power of the world’s largest economy.For a generation, presidents have respected the Fed’s autonomy. They might disagree with its decisions

Debenhams may sell Pretty Little Thing and shut distribution hub

The online fashion seller Debenhams, formerly known as Boohoo, is considering the sale of its Pretty Little Thing (PLT) brand and the closure of its distribution centre in Burnley, which could lead to the loss of 1,251 jobs.The company said it was “exploring a range of long-term options”, understood to include closure for the Burnley site and the sale of an already closed warehouse in the US amid falling sales and widening losses.The potential sale of Pretty Little Thing comes five years after Boohoo bought out a minority stake for more than £260m from Umar Kamani, the son of Boohoo’s executive chair and co-founder Mahmud Kamani, and business partner Paul Papworth.In delayed annual results, Debenhams said pretax losses had widened to £264m in the year to 28 February, from £164m a year earlier. One-off costs, including a writedown on its US warehouse and restructuring costs, amounted to £199m