7:01 am, July 4, 2023
Drivers ‘paid nearly £1bn more for fuel after supermarkets increased margins’
Drivers paid nearly £1bn more for fuel at supermarkets last year due to increased margins, an investigation has found.
Watchdog the Competition and Markets Authority said average supermarket fuel margins rose by 6p per litre between 2019 and 2022.
That led to an estimated combined additional cost of ‘around £900m’ for customers of Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons, a report said.
Rishi Sunak faces uphill battle in achieving his five pledges
Nearly half a year after Rishi Sunak set out five pledges he said would address ‘the people’s priorities’, the Prime Minister’s ability to achieve them looks in doubt.
Tuesday will mark six months since he invited the public to judge him on his targets – to halve inflation this year, cut NHS waiting lists, get national debt falling, grow the economy, and ‘stop the boats’.
With a general election due by January 2025, Mr Sunak faces an uphill battle to keep his promises to the electorate and turn around his party’s polling slump. The Prime Minister’s spokesman said ‘these are rightly ambitious targets’ that were ‘never going to be easy’.
Police unit recovers £1m of stolen cars and parts in a week
A specialist police unit recovered £1 million of stolen cars and parts in ‘one of its most successful weeks’, including a Rolls Royce and a Bentley.
Essex Police said its Stolen Vehicle Intelligence Unit identified a haul of complete stolen vehicles and the remains of others known to be stolen, among them several Range Rovers and BMWs.
In recent months, they have also located and recovered a range of Ferraris and Aston Martins, and a Rolls Royce Cullinan that was worth more than £360,000 alone.
UK manufacturing sinks to six-month low amid demand slump
The UK’s manufacturing sector has shrunk to a six-month low as producers continue to battle lacklustre demand at home and overseas, leading to nearly a year of decline.
But manufacturers’ input costs fell at the sharpest rate since 2016, a ‘symptom’ of weak demand, the influential survey found.
The closely watched S&P Global/CIPS UK Manufacturing PMI survey showed a reading of 46.5 in June, down from 47.1 in May, but coming in slightly ahead of economists’ expectations.
Monday’s Car Dealer headlines you might have missed
- Constellation loses all of Marshall’s Toyota sites, ANOTHER director and there’s changes at a Volvo dealership
- Rolls-Royce bans Spectre buyers from selling them on for a profit to used car dealers
- Agency sales could cause headaches for dealers selling value-added products – GardX
- eBay Motors Group data finds stock levels dipped last month as average used car prices began to fall
- Nissan launches car subscription service
- David Hanna to take over as head of network sales at Volkswagen UK
FTSE 100 slips into the red after AstraZeneca shares slump
London’s FTSE 100 failed to get off the ground on Monday after another disappointing set of manufacturing data and a drag from its most valuable stock.
It came as pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, the FTSE’s biggest market cap, slumped by nearly eight per cent, contributing to the London market closing 4.27 points lower, or 0.06 per cent, at 7,527.26.
Elsewhere in Europe, France’s Cac slipped 0.18 per cent on Monday, and Germany’s Dax was down 0.41 per cent.
Dacia to enter Dakar Rally in 2025
Dacia has announced that it will compete in the 2025 World Rally-Raid Championship, including the gruelling Dakar Rally.
The Renault-owned budget brand will compete as a manufacturer in arguably one of the most demanding forms of motorsport. Dacia says competing aligns with its values of being ‘rational’ and ‘emotional’.
Dacia has confirmed it will work with motorsport experts Prodrive, based in Banbury, Oxfordshire. The firm has been involved with the Dakar Rally since 2020 and has nearly 40 years of experience working in various motorsports.
Two arrested over north London double murder
Detectives have arrested two males suspects over a double murder in north London in which 15-year-old Leonardo Reid and a 23-year-old man were killed.
The pair – aged 27 and 17 – were arrested on Monday evening on suspicion of murder and attempted murder and are in custody at a north London police station.
Police were called at 11.33pm on Thursday to Elthorne Road, Archway, to reports of a stabbing and Leonardo was pronounced dead at the scene, while the 23-year-old, who has not yet been named, died in hospital.
Weather outlook…
Today, the rain will persist across the south during the morning but will clear to sunshine and showers by the afternoon. The rest of the UK will have variable cloud and scattered showers, the BBC reports.
This evening will see a few lingering showers but conditions will be turning generally drier. Plenty of clear spells throughout the night and just an isolated shower where the cloud will linger.
Tomorrow will continue unsettled in the north. Throughout the day, patchy cloud will develop widely across the country, resulting in a mix of sunshine and scattered showers for the rest of the day.
