UK consumer confidence falls at fastest rate since Covid as cost of living bites

Economic fallout from war in Middle East adds to pressures on consumers and on chancellor before budgetConsumer confidence in the UK has fallen at the fastest rate outside the Covid pandemic since the 2016 Brexit vote as the escalating economic damage from the war in the Middle East hits Britain.With less than a week before John Healey’s first budget, the latest barometer from the data company GfK indicated confiden…