UK consumer morale enjoys biggest boost in 14 years

British consumer morale enjoyed its biggest monthly boost in more than 14 years in September as people grew more optimistic about the economic outlook than at any time in the past decade, a survey showed on Wednesday.

The GfK/NOP consumer confidence index, which is conducted on behalf of the European Commission, leapt to -16 this month from -25 in August, beating the consensus forecast for -24 by a wide margin.

The nine-point jump was the biggest since January 1995 and took the index to its highest level since the start of 2008.

Consumer morale is often one of the first indicators of economic recovery and the results will provide some cheer to Prime Minister Gordon Brown who is struggling to boost his popularity before an election next Spring.

Polls point to a big win for the opposition centre-right Conservatives in what would be the first change of government in Britain since 1997. Brown's supporters are pinning their hopes of an upswing in the economy to reverse the Labour party's fortunes.

All index components registered significant increases. The index registering Britons' expectations for the economy over the coming year leapt 13 points to +4, the first positive reading this decade and the best level since May 1998.

The index measuring people's perception of their own finances for the coming year jumped five points to +5, the highest since February 2008 and 16 points higher than the same time last year.

"Looking at the individual elements of the index, every one of them improved this month, making the idea of this jump being a statistical blip slightly less likely," said Nick Moon, managing director of the pollster's social research group.

"Psychologically important is the fact that confidence in people's own personal finances for the next 12 months and confidemce in the general economy over the next 12 months both moved into positive territory, after being in the red for well over a year."