Sunday press review
Latest on next PM + travel + Adam Kay on electric cars + Musk and Twitter
Hello everyone, I hope you are enjoying the weekend. Here is Off to Lunch’s quick round-up of what I think is interesting in the Sunday papers and will be followed up in the days ahead. As ever, it is focused on business and finance plus a couple of other things that have caught my eye.
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With that out of the way, let’s get this week’s review started…
Only one place to start today, the latest on the battle to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative party and prime minister:
Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt both confirm they will run in The Sunday Telegraph and reveal some key policies. Javid says he will reverse the £12 billion national insurance increase as well as scrap next year’s rise in corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent and instead cut it to 15 per cent over the next few years. He also says he will bring forward a 1p cut in income tax to next year and temporarily cut fuel duty. Hunt says he will cut corporation tax to 15 per cent immediately in an autumn budget and also proposes a five-year business rates holiday to help struggling communities.
Other notable developments in The Sunday Telegraph include Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, backing Liz Truss while Gerard Lyons, the economist and former adviser to Johnson, backs Penny Mordaunt. The Telegraph splash is here, its interview with Javid here and its interview with Hunt here.
The Mail on Sunday splashes on the news that Liz Truss will also pledge to reverse the national insurance increase as well as pay off the national debt built up during the Covid-19 crisis in instalments over a decade. I am not sure what that second proposal entails or how it is different to what the UK is doing now, but we shall find out when she officially launches her campaign this week. The Mail story is here.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, launches his campaign in The Mail with an interview but there are no specific policies. “The level of taxes is totally unsustainable,” he says. The interview is here.
The Independent reports that Nadhim Zahawi’s financial affairs are being investigated by HMRC.
All this means that the confirmed runners are, in alphabetical order: Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Grant Shapps, Rishi Sunak, Tom Tugendhat and Nadhim Zahawi.
Penny Mordaunt has made it nine by launching this social media video this morning. It has the music to I Vow to Thee, My Country playing in the background but includes no policies and Mordaunt herself only speaks at the end…
As you can tell from the coverage this morning, tax is right at the centre of the leadership debate. The Sunday Times splashes on the Tories potentially tearing themselves apart on this issue. Oliver Shah has also done an interesting analysis on whether Sunak, the early frontrunner, can really win from a platform of promising fiscal responsibility while others announce tax cuts. The article covers how Sunak has often taken seemingly contradictory positions on tax and spending, frustrating the business world, and only last weekend co-wrote an op-ed with Johnson in The Sun that said the government would help families. Yet he is still seen as the most credible candidate by most of the City. The article is here.
For those looking for more colour on all this, Glen Owen has a piece in The Mail on Sunday about the bitterness, dossiers and lurid rumours already emerging in the leadership campaign. Meanwhile, Tim Shipman’s weekly deep dive into Downing Street tells the story of Johnson’s demise in The Sunday Times, including his fury towards Sunak and claims from the prime minister that the former chancellor is working with Dominic Cummings, which has been denied.
Moving away from the government, there are signs that households are changing their driving habits with petrol station forecourt sales down 10 per cent over the last four weeks, The Sunday Times reports. Road traffic is still tracking above pre-pandemic levels according to official figures, but experts say that drivers are cutting their speed to save fuel and there is also anecdotal evidence of people walking to work more. Piece here. On a similar topic, all local and regional bus journeys will cost under £2 from October as part of government plans to subsidise travel. Story here.
Adam Kay, author of This Is Going to Hurt, has written an amusing piece in The Sunday Times on what driving an electric car, the Jaguar I-Pace, has been like for the last year. He complains about the lack of charging points, obviously, but also provides this interesting nugget at one point: “I turn the car on — it’s fully charged but showing a range of only 185 miles rather than the usual 250,” he writes. “I call the dealership, assuming the battery is ‘doing an iPhone’ and dying after five months of ownership, but I’m told it’s absolutely fine and normal: the cold weather affects the battery’s performance.” Is this normal for electric cars?! The full piece is here.
Michael O’Leary, the boss of Ryanair, will chuckle at this article. Ryanair has been derided by critics for years and often makes the list of most disliked brands. However, amid chaos and cancelled flights at airports this summer, the airline has become a beacon of reliability. This Sunday Times piece looks at why and is a reminder that for all the broad factors that have hit air travel, it was possible for companies to avoid the chaos with smart decisions and some luck. Ryanair’s decision not to cut as many jobs as rivals during Covid has been key.
The fashion chain Joules has called in advisers from KPMG to help shore up its finances. Shares in the company have fallen by more than three quarters already this year, The Sunday Times reports.
Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group tried to get involved in the AO World fundraising last week, which could have left it with a stake in the electric retailer, according to The Mail on Sunday.
Lucy Burton at The Sunday Telegraph has interviewed Steve Ingham, the chief executive of recruitment business PageGroup, who announced earlier this year he was stepping down after 16 years role in the job. Ingham uses a wheelchair after a skiing accident in 2019 left him paralysed. He talks about the accident in the interview, adding: “Leaders are not unique individuals who never get injured, hurt and ill. We face all the same challenges that every human faces. Showing your vulnerability probably makes others feel comfortable that they can talk about theirs.”
For those looking to catch up on the latest on Elon Musk and Twitter after the billionaire announced on Friday night that he wanted to pull out of a takeover of the social media group, the Financial Times writes that the Tesla boss faces an “uphill battle” to win any legal battle over the collapse of the deal. Piece here.
That’s all for today. Thanks for reading. Off to Lunch will be back on Monday…