Sir Terry Leahy, the chairman of Tesco, is more trusted by consumers on issues concerning the recession than the Liberal Democrats party.
According to a survey by research consultancy Leapfrog, 10% of consumers trusted Leahy compared to 7% who said they trusted Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg.
Overall, more people trusted the collective views of captains of industry than any of the political parties when it came to charting our economic recovery.
While the governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King and the BBC’s economic commentator Robert Peston were considered the most reliable bellwether for the UK’s economic condition, with 22 per cent and 18 per cent of the votes respectively, the collective views of the chairmen of Tesco, Marks & Spencer and BHS held more weight than any single political party leader.
Together they scooped 19 per cent of the votes, narrowly beating Tory leader David Cameron with 18% while prime minister Gordon Brown polled 16%.
The nationally representative study, which polled the views of 2,000 consumers, also found that almost three times as many people (38%) considered supermarkets and retailers to be doing more to help families during the recession than the government (13%).
Thrifty shopping here to stay
Retailers hoping that the green shoots of recovery will reverse their sales slump will be concerned that the vast majority of people do not plan to alter their thrifty shopping behaviour once the UK is out of recession.
This was highlighted by the fact that 8 in ten consumers do not plan to alter their shopping behaviour at all or intend to continue to shop at value stores after the economy recovers.
Three-quarters (73 per cent) of consumers have changed their grocery shopping habits as a result of the recession, with nearly half (47 per cent) now buying more products from value or supermarket own-brand ranges, according to the study.
A quarter also said that they had cut down their spending by being less wasteful and only buying the fresh produce they needed. Only 7 per cent said they would splash out more on luxury items once the recession was over.
