UK growth forecasts upped again as confidence hits four-year high Separately, the monthly consumer confidence barometer from researchers GfK rose three points in August to minus 13, its highest level since October 2009. The latest rise was driven by the public's improving confidence in the economy as a whole and signalled a 14-point climb over the last four months, the biggest swing seen over that length of time in three decades. Nick Moon, managing director of social research at GfK, called it a "conundrum of Alice in Wonderland proportions" as, despite a pick-up in UK growth, "real" incomes are still falling. It seems sentiment is being driven by headline economic growth figures, including the revision away of the UK's apparent "double dip" into recession, rather than the pressure on incomes. Nonetheless, Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of the world's advertising company WPP, on Thursday called the UK's economic performance a "vindication" of the Chancellor's policies. "It's been a tough five years since Lehman [Brothers failed] in September 2008 but life is getting a little bit better in the UK, there's no denying that fact," he said. These economic policies that were decried several years ago are starting to work - albeit with considerable difficulty, considerable unemployment ... [which is] still at socially unacceptable high levels.