The City View: Boris on his last legs?
On today’s final episode of The City View, Andy Silvester talks to City A.M.’s Opinion and Features Editor Sascha O’Sullivan. They ask whether Boris Johnson is harming the Tory party’s chances of reelection, and if Starmer is the right man for the job as Labour leader.
And in the business news: TUI has cancelled nearly 200 flights due to serve Manchester airport, US activist investor Nelson Peltz has been appointed to the board of Unilever, and GSK has agreed to buy US vaccine firm Affinivax.
Episode transcript (auto-generated)
Andy Silvester 0:08 Good afternoon and welcome to The City View podcast. Indeed, the last City View podcast for some time. We’ve had a wonderful time recording this, and I hope you’ve enjoyed it too. But we’ve had some wonderful guests and a great insight from our reporters. But the time has come to go away as we head into the Jubilee and think about ways we can reshape and improve the city view. To give you more information, news analysis and everything that’s happening in the square mile, it won’t be a long break. We’ll be back soon then you know, and of course, when we do we’ll be the first to let you know. In a few minutes, I’ll be joined by Sasha Sullivan our opinion and features editor who will talk through the latest Westminster Carnage and what it means to Boris Johnson’s future. But first, the corporate headlines with help from our friends at P A, and tui has cancelled nearly 200 flights due to serve Manchester Airport between now and the end of June as the chaos faced by UK holidaymakers worsens. The airline made the announcement after passengers suffered long delays in recent days due to staff shortages bedevilling the industry. It will cancel six daily flights up to June 30, the sort of lottery that you really don’t want to win. Other airlines continuing to ask flights as well passengers being forced to wait in long queues at airports such as Manchester Heathrow, Gatwick and Bristol. Airline passengers have been hit by disruption for several months with a situation worsening this week due to the rise in demand sparked by the half term school holiday, as well as the Platinum Jubilee bank holiday weekend. The aviation industry has been suffering from staff shortages at length 1000s of people go during the Coronavirus pandemic. airlines and airports repeatedly called for more financial support during the crisis. As government travel restrictions suppress demand and now struggling to recruit new workers. And also those new workers they are able to recruit often finding delays in getting their security checks processed labour accused of governments there have been missing in action Tory ministers can’t even get the basics right Louise Hay said quite why the government should be fixing the aviation industry is slightly beyond me, but nonetheless chaos the blame for which must be laid somewhere. Meanwhile, the markets welcome the appointment of us activist investor Nelson Peltz to the board of Unilever on Tuesday, as analysts speculated it could bring a shake up at the consumer giant the maker of Ben and Jerry’s Dove soap and Hellman’s mayonnaise said that Mr. pelts would join the board, after the firm he runs took a stake worth 10s of millions. He was credited with bringing a strong hand to Procter and Gamble last year the US consumer giant where he was chairman report has been swirling since January that he may be building a stake in the firm with shares jumping whenever his name was mentioned in the headlines. confirmation on Tuesday, that tree and the company that he runs has built a nearly 2% stake in a company push shares up again by late morning in London shares and Unilever up by more than six percents now Unilever’s takeover target failed takeover target, I should say GlaxoSmithKline has also agreed to buy us vaccine firm affin of x and a deal worth up to 2.6 billion UK. It comes as a UK pharma businesses seeking to bolster its vaccine operation as part of a shake up of its portfolio, including the spin off of its consumer health business. A friend of x is working on developing vaccines which target pneumococcal disease. That’s not me forgetting what that word is just me struggling to pronounce my notes, including pneumonia, meningitis and bloodstream infections, and elsewhere discount retailer b&m has announced that finance boss Alex Russo is to become the firm’s new Chief Exec. It reports a dip in sales for the past year. But nonetheless, analysts expect him that the cost of living crisis will potentially benefit the discount retailer. Speaking of things going at a discount, Sasha O’Sullivan, let’s talk about Boris Johnson’s reputation, because it’s fair to say that we thought that, well, you may think differently, I thought that pasty gate had slightly died to death, and that we had got to a point where a series of apologies each more sincere than the last would have probably put it to bed and that people will be starting to move on to new and interesting things. And yet this week, Westminster has been abuzz with rumours about potentially a number of letters going in to Graham Brody, the head of the 22 Committee. It seems that actually, for whatever reason, we’re moving from the shock and awe of party gate investigations and revelations to the fallout in the political party, the Tory party. And it seems that perhaps Boris is in more trouble than maybe I thought.
Sascha O’Sullivan 4:30 Yes, absolutely. After surviving what many see is an astonishing amount of time since the original revelations came out about parties which happened during lock downs. Boris Johnson may finally be kind of facing the music. As MPs consider the losses and the local elections and upcoming by elections. Many are looking at the Prime Minister and thinking is he hurting our chances in these elections? And much of the Sue Gray report was published last week finally, and incredibly, there were even more revelations to come out over the last few days of parties which Carrie Johnson might have had, as well as some rather unsavoury stories about the treatment of housekeepers at the residence of checkers