Who’d be a retailer? Reading consumer confidence is difficult enough at the best of times, but at present it must be almost impossible. Purchasing Managers’ Index data, published yesterday, suggested that the services sector had enjoyed its best month in October since the beginning of the credit crunch in August 2007 and, on top of similarly upbeat data for manufacturing this week, it ought to have created a warm glow. However, after the shock GDP number for July-September, which was sharply at odds with the PMI figures for those months, economists are understandably sceptical over the extent to which survey data will translate into genuine growth in activity, even if GDP for the third quarter is eventually revised higher by the Office for National Statistics.

Likewise, data published yesterday by Nationwide Building Society also points to improving consumer confidence, although that survey was carried out before the recent GDP shock. With this backdrop — equally likely to cause headaches for the Bank of England’s policymakers today as they consider extending quantitative easing — no wonder that both Simon Wolfson, of Next, and Sir Stuart Rose, of Marks & Spencer, both felt that the best they could manage yesterday, when discussing the outlook for consumer spending, was cautious optimism. Both know that while the world no longer feels as if it is about to end, as it did a year ago, consumers face tax rises in the new year, while there will be further bad news. Unemployment, for example, is probably some way off its peak.

That’s the demand side of the story. On the supply side, as Sir Stuart confirms, there are also issues. The British Retail Consortium shop price deflator, published yesterday, may well have pointed to flat prices in October — a result of the price war, which, practically unacknowledged by all sides, is still raging in food — but cost pressure is starting to come through due to the way commodity prices have risen in recent months. That’s why Sir Stuart still predicts an erosion in M&S margins for 2009-10, albeit, after yesterday, not to the previous extent.

Under all these circumstances, the M&S figures published yesterday were highly creditable, particularly the market share gains in clothing in the face of fierce price cuts by the discounters.

Two big questions remain. The first concerns how well M&S is placed should the UK — assuming it escapes recession this quarter — suffer another downturn in 2010.

The other is the succession issue and, while Sir Stuart was reluctant to discuss this yesterday, M&S Kremlinologists will nonetheless note with interest how he identified the recovery in food as the highlight of the half-year. The fact that M&S is specifically naming competitors such as Waitrose in its advertising, for the first time, points to an aggressive new style, with which Sir Stuart is evidently pleased. It is, therefore, another sign that the M&S head of food, John Dixon, remains strongly in the running to succeed him.

Mr Wolfson, meanwhile, deserves a lot of credit. Next is often overlooked, rather unfairly, but yesterday was the fourth time this year that Mr Wolfson has upgraded his sales and profits guidance.

For a clothes retailer to achieve that, amid a horrific consumer downturn and an unseasonably warm autumn, is impressive.

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