Shops such as Marks & Spencer took a gamble by slashing prices and were rewarded with queues at the tills.

At the same time, oil industry analysts were predicting that a litre of unleaded petrol could be down to 85p by Christmas.

That welcome news comes hard on the heels of "gures which showed that food prices seem to have peaked and may be on the way down. The massive interest rate cuts announced over the past couple of months are also starting to lower the cost of living for many homeowners.

Clearly all these events have come too late to stave off an economic recession.

But they do provide hope that a full-blown depression can be avoided.

People are, understandably, nervous about the future. Yet the evidence suggests that if they feel they are being offered a bargain they will respond.

Cutting margins to the point where profits are negligible is a bitter pill for retailers to swallow. But if a collective determination to provide shoppers with deals which are simply too good to turn down is the key to keeping the economy going, it is surely a price worth paying.