Ministers should ‘start doing stuff’ to help farmers and cut fuel costs, says Asda boss
Asda’s executive chair has called on the government to “stand up and start doing stuff” to support farmers and ease the price of fuel as he warned that food prices would inevitably rise as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.Allan Leighton said farmers were under pressure but the supermarket had so far received “a trickle of requests not an avalanche” of cost price increases from its suppliers, as they were under pressure from higher fertiliser, energy and fuel costs.“I do believe it will create inflation,” he said, adding that the pace of cost increases was volatile and quite different across the various commodities.Leighton also warned of “temporary shortages’” at petrol stations, as supplies are squeezed by the conflict in the Middle East, with the RAC reporting on Friday that the average price of unleaded petrol in the UK had risen to 150p a litre.Leighton accused the government of benefiting from £3bn of income from fuel duties as prices rose and said it should ease these duties or support farmers on energy or other costs.
“The government has to stand up and start doing stuff that helps people,” he said.He added that tax from fuel dutyshould be redistributed for “supporting farmers in some shape or form”.Leighton, who returned to try to revive Asda 20 years after his first executive stint at the supermarket chain, said consumer confidence, which it measures every week through surveys, was “clearly going down” as a result of the conflict.The Asda boss’s comments on inflation come after Simon Wolfson, chief executive of the fashion and homewares retailer Next, suggested that clothing prices could rise by 4% to 10% if conflict in the Middle East extends into the autumn and factories are hit by higher fuel and fabric costs.Wolfson said Next had so far seen little disruption to its supply chain and did not expect prices to rise at all until the summer at the earliest.
Daniel Ervér, chief executive of the Swedish fashion chain H&M, has also said a prolonged conflict could have a significant impact on consumer spending and cause inflation,The Asda chair said its George clothing and homewares business was also not disrupted, but had seen shipping costs rise,He made the comments as he revealed underling profits at the supermarket dived by a third to £764m last year as non-fuel sales slid 3,3% to £21bn,Sales have gone backwards, despite an effort to win over shoppers with price cuts and refurbished stores.
Asda notched up its first month of underlying sales growth in stores in almost two years in March, after it finally resolved IT problems linked to a switch away from services provided by its former owner, Walmart.Leighton conceded that the chain’s online grocery sales continued to fall as a result of a “clunky” website.He said the struggling retailer was “edging forwards” and expected to improve its website in the next three or four months and return to profit “soon”.He said he now had his full leadership team in place and expected eventually to pick a chief executive from the group.“We have good momentum in the business,” he said, adding that he still believed it would take three to five years to bring about a turnaround.
“These things don’t turn around overnight.”Asda, the UK’s third largest grocery chain, which has 579 supermarkets, 517 Express convenience stores and 29 Asda Living general merchandise and fashion outlets, is on track to be overtaken by its fast-growing rival Aldi.Asda has been struggling with debts and IT problems since a highly leveraged £6.8bn takeover in 2020 by the billionaire Issa brothers and the private equity firm TDR Capital.TDR now controls the group after buying out one of the brothers, Zuber Issa, while Mohsin Issa retains a 22.
5% stake.On Friday, Asda said net debt had fallen by £500m in the past year to £3.1bn and it had ended the year with £1.3bn in cash, which Leighton said gave the group “great optionality”.Asda has sold off and leased back stores and warehouses in order to cut debts and to fund price cuts in an attempt to win back shoppers.
Clive Black, a retail analyst at Shore Capital, said Asda’s return to sales growth since the year end was “a very welcome change”.“Asda will be a more stable player [this year] and so not a source of such easy share gain for the rest of the trade, in a competitive but, to us, still rational sector.”
Chess: iconic Reykjavik Open sparks memory of Bobby Fischer from 1973
The nine-round Reykjavik Open, which began on Wednesday afternoon at the Harpa Conference Centre and which continued with two rounds on Thursday, is an iconic event. It was first played as an all-play-all in 1964, when Mikhail Tal won, and is close to the Hotel Reykjavik Natura, formerly the Hotel Loftleidir, which featured prominently in the epic Bobby Fischer v Boris Spassky match of 1972.The top seed in the capacity entry of 422 players is Iran’s Amin Tabatabaei, the only 2700-rated player in the field, with Romania’s Bogdan-Daniel Deac (2655) next, and the veteran Ukrainian Vasyl Ivanchuk (2624) the fourth seed.England has a large contingent of more than 20, although most of them are low-rated amateurs. GM Matthew Wadsworth (2522) is the 21st seed, and GM Simon Williams (2443) the 39th, while WIM Bodhana Sivanandan, 11, is targeting her second WGM norm
Buttler looks for form as IPL returns with riches, political rancour and aftermath of tragedy
Former England captain seeks inspiration from the pioneering Kevin Pietersen as he heads a 12-strong contingent of compatriots in 2026’s tournament“I will always be grateful for what the IPL gave me,” Kevin Pietersen tells Jos Buttler. “It gave me a lot of controversy, I earned a lot of money, but it also saved my career because I made trusting relationships that I was able to call upon to give longevity to my career.”The conversation is on Buttler’s podcast, For The Love Of Cricket, released on Tuesday, with the pair hailing their experiences of playing in the Indian Premier League. (For the love of content, they also discuss Pietersen’s new career as a YouTuber.) The 45-year-old was there in the early years, rebelling against English cricket’s uneasy relationship with a revolutionary startup, exhilarated to call Rahul Dravid and Jacques Kallis his teammates
Aryna Sabalenka sinks Rybakina to set up Miami Open final showdown with Gauff
Aryna Sabalenka believes she is ready for the challenge of her rival Coco Gauff in the Miami Open final as she stands one win away from winning Indian Wells and Miami in the same year for the first time.“She’s a fighter,” Sabalenka said of Gauff. “She’s a great player, of course. We played a lot of matches, a lot of tight matches, a lot of big finals. And, yeah, she’s a great player and I’m really excited to face her in the final
Human rights experts raise concerns over Olympics transgender women athlete ban
Over 100 human rights, sports and scientific groups have criticised the International Olympic Committee’s new gender eligibility guidelines as “a blunt and discriminatory response that is not supported by science and violates international human rights law”.The IOC’s new guidelines, announced on Friday, mandate genetic sex tests for all athletes competing in its women’s categories, as well as blanket bans of people who identify as transgender, intersex or with sex differences.Athletes in these categories have been allowed to compete in Olympic events since the IOC scrapped mandatory sex testing in 1999, which was deemed arbitrary, inaccurate, expensive and discriminatory.New IOC president Kirsty Coventry reversed the organisation’s position and backflipped on its own 2021 Framework on Fairness, Inclusion, and Non-Discrimination, a policy informed by extensive consultation and research which recognised the need for evidence-based, sport-specific and rights-respecting rules.“Mandatory genetic sex testing and rigid biological criteria as a condition for participation in the women’s category violates fundamental and universal human rights … including the right to equality, non-discrimination, dignity, privacy, and bodily autonomy,” said Professor Paula Gerber, an international human rights lawyer at Monash University
AFL scratching its head on decline in Indigenous participation as weight of history takes toll | Sean Gorman
I write this having come from the funeral of the West Perth and Buffaloes great Bill Dempsey. I mention this because Dempsey is the first Northern Territory player to play on the MCG. He was a trailblazer that set the scene so many other Territorians like Long, Rioli, Burgoyne, White and McLeod could follow. Demspey’s legacy came about by chance, as he was the support act for the talented Darwin recruit Jimmy Anderson when they both came down to Melbourne in the late 1950s. Anderson lasted a few weeks
Castleford’s sensational spell blows Bradford away to kick off birthday celebrations
It is fair to assume neither Castleford Tigers nor Bradford Bulls will be in title contention later this year, not least based on what we saw here from both teams. However, in terms of an appetiser to set the scene for Super League’s 30th anniversary weekend, this West Yorkshire derby was about as entertaining as you could have hoped for if you were a neutral.The beauty of early-season games like these is that narratives that have been formed can be quickly dismantled in the blink of an eye and, given defensive displays they have put in so far, it was hard not to feel that was perhaps the case on this occasion.With three wins from their opening five since promotion, Bradford have rightly been heralded as a major positive of 2026. In contrast, Castleford have won only once and arrived at this game off the back of a 72-6 defeat at Warrington, one of their heaviest in the Super League era
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