You are the silent majority Colin.
As you say if I need something I buy it, over my numerous years I have watched goods go up for various reasons by various governments and it has never stopped people buying what they need even when we had to save to buy them, unlike now.
This media hysteria about the vat rise will make no difference, it will be the same as when it was lowered to 15%. Who on this forum dashed out to buy something just because the cost went down by a couple of pence or pounds, I know there was no change at all to the way I spent my money.