As regular Sloggers know only too well, I’m the last bloke to encourage the painting rosy hues onto Britain’s immediate future. But as I tried to show with yesterday’s piece about employment, the Coalition is making some progress – with remarkably little downside as yet.

Much the same applies to today’s ONS numbers about August retail sales.

‘UK retail in surprise fall’ said the voice of the Wall St Journal. ‘Surprise fall in UK retail’ says the Torygraph. ‘Retail sales drop adds to evidence of slowdown’ wrote the Guardian – mind you, we all know Pravda’s agenda.

I’m not sure I can see what they’re on about.

Seasonally adjusted, versus the same month in 2009, value was up 2%, volume 0.4%. Nothing to shout about – but no sign of drop or fall here. This is a far more meaningful comparison than with the previous month at this time of year. Back to School, for instance, ups clothes purchases – evidenced by the rise of clothing by 6.4%.

Nobody mentioned the collapse in petrol sales – by 14% – a sure sign that sales forces are shrinking and private motorists are cutting back – again, this reinforces the savings ratio increases we’ve been seeing. Just as important, nobody mentioned the overall annual retail inflation rate – a comparatively paltry 1.5%. This last figure continues to convince me that deflation is the bigger threat in the long term….but of course, if you don’t read that far, you’re not going to reach that conclusion.

It’s getting to the stage with the media and statistics where they should be issued with a Flying licence before they’re allowed to write about economic ‘results’. And anyway, slowdown or not, none of the sales figures are important, because virtually none of them will earn money for Britain. This is the one thing that the Left seems unable to grasp – but it’d be nice of the hacks could.