John Lewis has promised to match any discounting on the high street in the run-up to Christmas, as middle England’s favourite department store reported a sharp drop in trade after a “disappointing” week.

Andy Street, managing director of the chain, said the impact of the British banking crisis had fed through to customers’ mindsets in recent weeks, with underlying sales down 7.6 per cent over the past seven days. “Our like-for-likes for the past 12 weeks are down 4 per cent, for the six months to July-end we were down 1 per cent. “The majority of this decline has come in October, as the financial turmoil began to be reflected in our numbers.”

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