Prime minister Boris Johnson will face a vote of no confidence in his leadership this evening

By Suzanne Evans, Director, Political Insight

Prime minister Boris Johnson will face a vote of no confidence in his leadership this evening. The vote follows confirmation in a press release issued by Graham Brady MP, Chairman of the 1922 Committee that the threshold of 15% of the Conservative parliamentary party requesting such a vote – amounting to a minimum of 54 Tory MPs - has been exceeded.
 
London Underground is advising people not to travel today because of a 24-hour strike by thousands of members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) in a dispute over jobs and pensions. Transport for London (TfL) said it expects severe disruption across the network until 8am tomorrow morning. Other TfL services, including DLR, London Overground and Trams,mare not affected by the industrial action and will be running but will be busier. Richard Burge, CEO of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: “We are extremely disappointed that the RMT has called for a mass walkout by TfL workers in such close proximity to the Queen’s Jubilee Weekend when London will be full of visitors. The last two years hit London disproportionately hard and the capital is desperately trying to claw back some sense of normality after a tumultuous two years”.
 
There has been further disruption at London’s Gatwick Airport over the Jubilee bank holiday weekend. Yesterday, easyJet said it had cancelled around 80 flights “due to the ongoing challenging operating environment”, affecting an estimated 12,000 people. At least 20 flights were cancelled by the airline on Saturday. PA Media said the budget airline blamed issues at Gatwick, and at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, where the majority of flights for every airline were listed as delayed or cancelled. British Airways, Wizz Air and Vuelingalso had flights affected but the numbers were significantly lower. A spokeswoman for easyJet said: “Airlines continue to operate in a challenging environment including with air traffic control restrictions operating today at London Gatwick and issues with ground operations at several airports including at Amsterdam”.  A Gatwick spokesman said air traffic control restrictions are largely down to poor weather and staffing issues across Europe, and the airport is not the only one facing issues. So far, over 400 flights out of the UK have been cancelled since 25 May, according to flight tracking firm Cirium. The aviation industry is suffering from staff shortages after letting thousands of people go during the coronavirus pandemic.
 
The Government met with senior leaders from the airline industry on Wednesday - including airports, airlines and ground handling companies - to discuss the issues. Subsequently, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he understood the sector's staffing problems but added it "does not excuse poor planning and overbooking flights that they cannot service". Airline bosses should have been preparing for a "surge in passenger demand following two years of travel closures," he added. The BBC says it understands that at the meeting, airlines and airports asked Shapps to add industry workers to the government's shortage occupation list which would allow companies to recruit staff from overseas, but that Shapps rejected the idea. A call from Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary to draft the army in to help was also quashed by Shapps. The industry also asked for direct access to HM Revenue & Customs tax records in order to speed up the vetting process for potential new hires, alongside other ideas to help avoid summer travel chaos. However, a spokesperson for the Department of Transport did not elaborate on what policy proposals had been made, or whether they had been accepted.
 
Meanwhile, the GMB union, which represents aviation workers, is suggesting airline passengers don’t check in luggage and just take one carry-on bag on board to avoid delays and “limit the disruption". Paul Charles, CEO of travel consultancy PC Agency, agreed saying: "The smaller the bag, the less time you spend in security queues. That would reduce the queues during the busiest weekend of the year so far." or not that's carrying hand luggage or getting there three hours earlier than their flight."
 
The RAC is again urging the Government to step in to do more to help motorists as the cost of filling a family car with fuel tips £100. The motoring body’s fuel spokesman Simon Williams said: “With drivers facing such a dire situation on the forecourts we badly need further intervention from the chancellor as households and businesses surely can’t take much more financial pain in conjunction with the horrendous hikes in gas and electricity.” “Something needs to be done, whether that’s a further cut in duty from the current 53p charged on every litre bought at the pumps, or a reduction in VAT from 20%,” he added, also noting that “it also seems very unfair that the Treasury is benefitting to the tune of 30p a litre in VAT revenue from the record high prices – as it’s effectively a tax on a tax, applied on top of the wholesale fuel cost, duty, delivery, and retailer margin. With the challenges drivers are facing, a VAT cut would be instant and wouldn’t be swallowed up by fluctuations on the wholesale market”.

A four-day week pilot programme starts today. More than 3,300 workers at 70 UK companies, ranging from a local chippy to large financial firms, will receive 100% of their pay for 80% of their working time, in exchange for a commitment to maintain 100% productivity. The trial will run for six months and is being organised by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with the thinktank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week Campaign, and researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College. They say it is the biggest four-day week pilot to take place anywhere in the world.
 
A survey of letting agents reported by The Independent suggests the number of available rentals across the UK has halved. Industry body Propertymark surveyed more than 440 letting businesses across 4,000 branches.  Last month, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics) last month said the number of available properties to rent was edging down as demand from renters increased. Rics said in early March that 63% of property professionals expect rents to rise in the next three months, the highest proportion since its records started in 1999.
 
Mortgage borrowing fell by 36% in April in another signal that the housing market is starting to lose momentum in the face of rising inflation.  Net mortgage borrowing dropped to £4.1bn last month from £6.4bn in March, the Bank of England said on Tuesday. Mortgage approvals for house purchases also fell, from 69,500 to 66,000. Both measures are now below their 12-month pre-pandemic averages, though the housing market remains much busier than it was before coronavirus. "Activity among purchasers is ebbing as the cost-of-living squeeze shrinks the pool of buyers,” Hina Bhudia, partner at Knight Frank Finance, told Sky News.
 
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced an investigation into the planned sports broadcasting joint venture between BT Group and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Eurosport UK division. "The CMA is considering whether it is or may be the case that this transaction if carried into effect, will result in the creation of a relevant merger situation under the merger provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002 and, if so, whether the creation of that situation may be expected to result, in a substantial lessening of competition within any market or markets in the United Kingdom for goods or services," the competition watchdog said in a statement on Wednesday morning.  
 
A new interested party has appeared in the proposed sale of Motor Fuel Group (MFG), Britain's biggest independent operator of petrol forecourts. Sky News has learnt that the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), one of the world’s 20 largest oil companies, is lining up bankers to work on a potential offer for MFG, which has been put up for sale with a price tag of about £5bn. MFG is currently owned by Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R), the private equity firm which eventually bought Morrisons in a deal worth about £7bn.
 
Tullow Oil is to merge with Capricorn Energy in an all-share deal. Under the terms of the transaction, Capricorn shareholders will be entitled to receive 3.8068 new Tullow shares for each of their shares. Capricorn shareholders will own 47% of the combined group, while Tullow holders will own the rest. Tullow said the merger will create "a leading African energy company with a material and diversified asset base and a portfolio of investment opportunities delivering visible production growth". The merger is expected to realise pre-tax net cash savings of $50m (£40.03m) per year.
 
Dr Martens has reported a jump in profits and raised its guidance on revenue growth for next year. The iconic FTSE 250 boot company shrugged off inflation fears as sales jumped 18% to £908.3m and profits rose 43% to £214m.  The company, founded in Northamptonshire, said it expects “high teens” revenue growth in 2023 as a result of price increases, and will open between 25 and 35 more shops on top of the 24 opened this year, which took its total store estate to 158.
 
London's iconic Camden Market has been put up for sale with a £1.5bn price tag. Investment bank Rothschild & Co is overseeing the sale process, the BBC understands. The 16-acre patchwork of more than 1,000 stalls, bars, shops, and cafes, in north London is a popular tourist destination that has long been associated with various counter-cultural movements, from punks to hippies, and “New Age” spirituality. The market sprung up out of a run-down timber yard in 1972, after it was purchased by two childhood friends. Now, it claims to attract 28 million visitors a year, and could be the subject of a potential bidding war as its Israeli owner, Teddy Sagi, looks to offload it after eight years of ownership, during which time many independent sellers have left the area to be replaced by more well-established brands.
 
The London Metal Exchange (LME) is being sued in the High Court for £365m by fund manager Elliott Associates, which claims the decision to suspend and cancel nickel trades on 8th March this year because of a surge in prices was "unlawful on public law grounds" and "constituted a violation" of its rights. In response, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, which owns LME said: "The LME management is of the view that the claim is without merit and the LME will contest it vigorously."
 
Marcus Bokkerink, a former senior partner at Boston Consulting Group, has been picked as the government's preferred choice to chair the Competition and Markets Authority.
 
Pets At Home has a new CEO. On Wednesday, Lyssa McGowan took over from Peter Pritchard, who announced his intention to retire from the group back in November 2021 after eleven years.
 
Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook's parent company Meta, has announced she is leaving the business after 14 years to focus on her foundation and philanthropic work.
 
Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk has rowed back from emails sent to Tesla executives saying he has a "super bad feeling" about the US economy, that the firm has become "overstaffed in many areas," and he needed to cut jobs by about 10%. On Saturday, in a reply to an unverified Twitter account that made a "prediction" that Tesla's headcount would increase over the next 12 months, he said: "Total headcount will increase, but salaried should be fairly flat". Musk also issued employees with an ultimatum to return to the office for a minimum of 40 hours a week. Failure to do so would be taken as a resignation, he wrote. According to a Tesla US regulatory filing, the company and its subsidiaries had almost 100,000 employees at the end of 2021, Reuters says.
 
Meanwhile, hundreds of Tesla owners have complained to the US regulator that the cars operating on the partially automated driving systems have suddenly stopped for no reason, Sky News reports. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said they are investigating the issue, which has been reported by 750 people.
 
US employers added more new jobs than expected in May with payrolls rising by 390,000, according to the latest figures from the US Labor Department. Economists had forecast a 325,0000 rise. The unemployment rate held at 3.6% for the third month in a row. Meanwhile, the annual rate of US inflation hit 8.3% in the year to April, a slight drop from the level recorded for March, but still the highest rate since 1981.
 
Ukraine's central bank has more than doubled its interest rate to 25% to the highest level for any European country. The move is intended to slow soaring inflation and prevent a further collapse of its currency following Russia's invasion in February, the BBC says. Businesses have been forced to close and key supply chains have been cut off since the war began. The World Bank predicts that Ukraine's economy could shrink by as much as 45% this year. The rate of inflation - or the cost of living - has risen to 17% in Ukraine and is on track to hit 20% this year according to the central bank.

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