Retail sales are at the highest level in more than three years, in the latest measure of the UK economy to confound economists.

The amounts bought in shops rose 0.5% in September, far above the 0.2% contraction anticipated by economists polled by Reuters.

It was the fourth monthly rise in a row and brought volumes to their highest level since July 2022.

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Doing well were computer and telecommunications retailers as the iPhone 17 launched in the month, while online jewellers reported strong demand for gold despite the price hovering around record highs.

Gold has been in demand, and in recent days reached a record high, as some investors moved money out of the US dollar and government bonds amid the ongoing government shutdown.

It came despite a rainy month – which typically keeps shoppers at home – and a five-day tube strike in London.

The impact of the rain could be seen, however, in the boost to online spending, which rose to one of the highest levels since the end of the pandemic.

A fall was recorded in food shop sales from August to September, signalling a response to high food price inflation.

A good week for the economy?

Retail sales figures are significant as they measure household consumption, the largest expenditure in the UK economy.

Growing retail sales can mean economic growth, which the government has repeatedly said is its top priority.

Earlier this week, another key economic measure came in better than expected.

Inflation remained at 3.8% rather than rising to the widely expected 4% – double the target rate set by the interest rate-setters at the Bank of England.

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Consumers were feeling better about their finances, a closely watched measure of consumer confidence showed on Friday.

Buying sentiment is up from last month, according to market research company GFK, as intentions to buy big-ticket items like electrical goods and furniture rose.

Combined, it suggests people are not feeling too gloomy in the run-up to the November budget.

In a by-election in the birthplace of the comedian Tommy Cooper, it was Plaid Cymru that had the last laugh.

During the campaign, Nigel Farage and Reform UK’s candidate Llyr Powell had posed for photos in front of the statue of the legendary comic in Caerphilly.

But when the result was declared at 2.10am at the count in the town’s leisure centre, Mr Farage – who’d been campaigning for Mr Powell on polling day – was nowhere to be seen.

In fact, the joke among Plaid supporters at the count was that Mr Farage was halfway down the M4 on his way back to London – long before the declaration.

It was one of those by-election counts when one party – in this case Reform UK – is expected to win as the polls close at 10pm, but within a few hours it becomes clear the other party looks like winning.

After all, Reform UK threw everything at the campaign, Mr Farage had visited three times and a poll last week had suggested his party was ahead of Plaid Cymru by 42% to 38%.

Plaid’s by-election winner Lindsay Whittle, a cheerful extrovert dressed in a colourful crimson jacket, admitted in a Sky News interview that he’d fought parliamentary and Senedd elections in Caerphilly unsuccessfully 13 times previously.

If at first you don’t succeed…

He was chipper from the moment he arrived at the count even before the polls closed, and was clearly pretty confident he was going to win.

Contrast his body language with the forlorn figure of Mr Powell, who without Mr Farage or Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf – who’d been at the count for an hour or so at the beginning but had left – appeared to arrive on his own and looked neglected by his party as well as dejected.

As runner up, poor Mr Powell had the opportunity to make a speech after the declaration but chose not to, though some of the other losing candidates did.

This result is a huge boost for Plaid, however, as the party aims to seize control of the Senedd in elections next year. But it’s a big setback for Mr Farage’s hopes of making inroads in Wales.

But for Labour, whose vote crumbled like Caerphilly cheese, it’s a disaster and will send many Labour MPs into a panic about their chances of holding their seat at the next general election.

In the end, for all the talk of the result being close, it was a relatively comfortable win for Plaid, with a majority of nearly 4,000.

In his Sky News interview, Labour’s Huw Irranca-Davies, a former Westminster MP who’s now deputy first minister in Wales, blamed Reform for cranking up immigration as an issue in the campaign for Labour’s slump in support.

But this result shows that it isn’t only Reform that poses a threat to Labour, but also parties on the left such as the nationalists.

Caerphilly has sent Labour MPs to Westminster for more than a century and Labour Welsh assembly and Senedd members to Cardiff since devolution began in 1999.

This was a Labour stronghold as impregnable as Caerphilly’s mighty castle. Not any more though, it seems.

The result will serve as a warning that Labour’s dominance in the valleys and what might be described as “old industrial Wales” may be coming to an end.

And just like a Tommy Cooper magic trick that goes wrong, that could happen just like that.

Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips can repair relations with grooming gang survivors so the inquiry can go ahead, Harriet Harman has said.

A row over who chairs and oversees the long-awaited inquiry into grooming gangs has seen four of about 30 survivors on the panel quit and say they will only return if Ms Phillips resigns.

The women, who are overseeing the setting up of the inquiry, have accused her of wanting to expand the inquiry’s scope so it focuses on more than grooming gangs – something Ms Phillips denies.

Baroness Harman, a former Labour home secretary, told Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast she thinks there has been miscommunication with some survivors which “can be solved if there is underlying trust and confidence”.

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She said this situation has happened before, with the Grenfell fire inquiry when friends and family of those killed were not happy about the original chair or scope, but came around and were satisfied with the outcome.

It also happened, she said, when murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence’s parents did not trust then-home secretary Jack Straw to set up an inquiry into the handling of the police investigation.

“Actually, that trust was built, although at the outset of the [Lawrence] inquiry their lawyers stood up and asked for it to be adjourned and suspended indefinitely,” she said.

“And that happened before it actually got going and became a really important landmark inquiry.”

Five other survivors invited on to the child sexual exploitation inquiry panel have written to Sir Keir Starmer to say they will continue working with the investigation only if the safeguarding minister stays.

They say they believe Phillips has remained impartial and they want her to “remain in position for the duration of the process for consistency”.

Sir Keir has backed Ms Phillips to continue in her position.

Baroness Harman said Ms Phillips was “wrong to attack the people that are coming after her” after the minister gave a fiery rebuke in the Commons over criticism of the inquiry, including about its scope and about two potential chairs – an ex-senior police officer and a former social worker – who have both now withdrawn.

One of the survivors, Ellie Reynolds, said she felt an inquiry had become “less about the truth and more about a cover-up”.

Ms Phillips, who previously managed Women’s Aid refuges for domestic abuse victims, denied this and insisted the government was “committed to exposing the failures”.

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Baroness Harman said the minister’s “attack… made the situation far more difficult”.

But she added: “It must be exasperating for Jess Phillips to have her credibility, her commitment, her integrity questioned by people who’ve made no commitment to the struggles that she’s given her life’s work to.

“But although it must be exasperating, she can’t afford to be exasperated because this is about answering the questions that have been put.

“Because watching this is not just the 30 who are on the panel that have been chosen by the government to help with the inquiry, but it’s the thousands of other girls who’ve been abused and for whom this inquiry matters enormously.”