Great Britain is not only in a political but also in an economic crisis.

Retail sales in September were 1.4 percent lower than in the previous month, the statistics office ONS announced on Friday in London.

The decline was almost three times as strong as the economists surveyed by the Reuters news agency had predicted.

Compared to the same month last year, sales fell by 6.9 percent, the sharpest since May 2020 in the initial phase of the corona pandemic.

The fact that many shops remained closed on the day of Queen Elizabeth II's funeral may have contributed to this.

"Overall, we think the economy is already in recession and will continue into recession through the third quarter of 2023," said economist Thomas Pugh of tax and advisory firm RSM UK.

The local currency, the pound, depreciated against the dollar following the release of the data.

She is already under pressure from the policies of Prime Minister Liz Truss, who experts have described as chaotic, and who announced her resignation on Thursday.

Your conservative party wants to choose a successor next week.

Consumers are cutting back on spending after the cost of living rose by around 10 percent.

Several retailers, including Britain's largest supermarket chain Tesco and online fashion retailer Asos, issued profit warnings in October as they grapple with higher energy and labor costs and the weak pound.

At the same time, the state has to take out more loans.

In September it was £20.01 billion, according to the Statistics Office.

That's almost three billion more than economists expected.

Since April, borrowing has totaled £72.5 billion, a decrease of around a quarter compared to the same period last year, but twice as high as in the period April-September 2019 - i.e. before the corona pandemic.

The deficit will widen when the government's expensive energy price subsidies begin, said Institute for Fiscal Studies associate director Carl Emmerson.

Treasury Secretary Jeremy Hunt plans to present his budget on October 31, which should include spending cuts and further tax increases.

"In order to stabilize markets, I made it clear that protecting our public finances means there are tough decisions to be made," Hunt said.

"We will do whatever is necessary to reduce debt in the medium term."