Are monthly retail stats that useful?

So, we were all so impressed with the swashbuckling performance of Gareth Southgate’s team that we all rushed out and bought replica England shirts and packs of lager – to the point that retail sales in July were 0.5 per cent higher than in June. No, I don’t buy that either – even though it has been widely reported today in reaction to the latest statistical release from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

As I have written here before, I don’t really trust the month-on-month figures for retail sales. They are too volatile to be meaningful. Moreover, they depend somewhat on how many weekends fell in the month: some have four weekends, some five, and some four and a half. Nor, on closer examination, does the football shirt argument stack up: clothing and footwear stores actually suffered a fall in July, while department stores enjoyed a rise. Moreover, if we wanted to buy replica England shirts, why didn’t we buy them in June, when the Euros tournament began (and when retail sales fell by 0.9