Terry Murden: The Wal-Mart effect coming to a high street near you soon

IT WON'T come as any great surprise to those at the sharp end of British retailing but the latest survey from PwC shows exactly what has been happening in the high street.

And it doesn't make comfortable reading.

Anyone who cherishes a shopping trip to town had better do it quickly before there is nothing left apart from pound stores, pawnbrokers, charity shops and, well, the remaining units probably boarded up.

The crisis that has been developing for probably ten or even 20 years is now evident across the UK - and Scotland is suffering a greater loss of stores than anywhere else.

No wonder the Scottish Retail Consortium is campaigning for a range of changes and improvements, from better parking to more attractive business rates and help against crime. The biggest worry is that the problem is likely to get worse, though it is important to distinguish between failing retail companies and failing shops.

The internet may be grabbing a growing proportion of shoppers with 14 per cent now buying online once a week against 4 per cent just four years ago, but many of those online retailers are also bricks and mortar companies, such as John Lewis and Marks & Spencer, who have adapted to modern shopping habits to protect their bottom line.

Undoubtedly, there will be further change in shopping habits so that stores will stock fewer lines and use their premises more as showrooms to display and promote products. Consumers still enjoy trying out and testing before they buy.

That said, the fight is all but lost for those towns caught betwixt and between the shopping malls.

Attempts by Paisley to fend off the twin threats of Silverburn and Braehead are increasingly futile and its campaign to become a discount town looks like a one-way route to further oblivion.

Looking over everyone's shoulders, of course, are the mighty supermarkets. The PwC report comes out just a few days after Tesco announced it was moving into selling double glazing.

Soon there will be nothing that cannot be acquired at Tesco as the number and choice of stores reduces and the ones that survive become ever bigger.

It is the Wal-Mart-isation of Britain and it is coming to a town near you.

MPC caught between a rock and a hard place

While the Bank of England's monetary policy committee chose to maintain the base rate at half of one per cent, the European Central Bank (ECB) was opting for a quarter-point rise to 1.5 per cent.Could they both be right? Or maybe they're both wrong.

With the gulf between Britain and the eurozone widening, it is prompting analysts to delve deeper into the figures and place their bets on who is likely to emerge the stronger for their respective decisions.

The ECB has been much more determined to tackle the inflation beast head-on but it has, arguably, the tougher decision to take. While France and Germany steam ahead, the laggards of the eurozone - Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain - won't thank it for adding to their existing burdens.

The looming worry for Britain is stagflation - a combination of high inflation and low growth. The longer the monetary policy committee delays, the more likely it becomes.

However, the call now seems to be for a further injection of cash into the economy, a decision that could come next month. A rate rise won't happen until November, at the earliest, by which time the MPC will have seen the next quarterly GDP figures. But don't bet on any change. With the MPC more focused on the lacklustre recovery, it could be another year away.

Twists and turns of the News of the World scandal

THE closure of the News of the World is not the end of the scandal that has engulfed it. There will be calls for resignations among those at the heart of this grotesque affair which has brought the world's biggest selling Sunday title into conflict with the public, the paper losing the battle once its biggest advertisers withdrew their support.

One immediate casualty could be Rupert Murdoch's hopes of getting his hands on BSkyB as this has gone beyond being determined merely on competition grounds.

However, Murdoch faces forfeiting the revenues from the NoW that help keep the loss-making Times going. He could fill the void with another title (a merged Sun/NoW was already under discussion) or it could signal disposal of his British papers. That would also remove any competition issues over his ownership of BSkyB.