People are strikingly downbeat on the UK's prospects of economic growth, as price rises and the credit crunch take their toll on budgets.
Four in five Britons believe that the UK economy is heading towards recession, a new poll has shown.
The Guardian/ICM survey also found that six in ten were "worried" about their personal finances, and that a similar number were planning to "spend less" in the current economic conditions. Food and fuel costs have both been on the rise in recent months, and consumers have also experienced difficulties in borrowing money from banks and building societies due to the credit crunch.
There was also an indication from the poll that the budget worries were having a knock-on effect on peoples' political preferences: the Conservative party now has a 19 percent lead from Labour on the question of which party is "best able" to deal with a slowing economy. David Cameron's party also has a 15 percent overall lead on which party people plan on voting for at the next election.
When asked which items they were spending less on, if at all, 72 percent said that they had cut back on their clothes expenditure. Elsewhere, 71 percent had reduced their food spend, while 70 percent are cutting their petrol budget.
Recession conditions, generally defined by economists as two successive quarters of negative GDP growth, have not been experienced in Britain since the early 1990s.
