Image source, Chemical Industries Association

The contenders for the leadership of the Conservative Party - see previous post - can expect to find themselves the target of much lobbying in the coming weeks.

Straight out of the blocks comes the Chemical Industries Association which has sent an open letter to the candidates pointing out that the industry contributes £200bn every year - or £3.8bn a week - to the UK economy and employs 150,000 people. 

It says it's the UK's biggest manufacturing export earner - and expects to be able to increase its contribution to £300bn a year by 2030. 

So what does the association - which represents chemical and pharmaceutical companies both large and small - want the prospective leaders to do in order for it to be able to achieve that? 

The letter spells it out: "Every successful economy has a strong manufacturing base, with a chemical sector at its heart," it says.

"In leaving the European Union we would stress three key priorities that must be secured to ensure that success – access to the single market; the availability of skilled people and the supply of competitive and secure energy." 

We'll keep you posted when other sectors come forward with their priorities ...

Image source, Getty Images

More reaction to the news that the Chancellor George Osborne has abandoned his target of restoring government finances to a surplus by 2020 - this time from the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell.

UK and EU politicians send conflicting signals about how the UK's Brexit negotiations should proceed.

The fishing industry wants out of the EU in the face of Scottish government efforts to keep the country in, ministers are being told.

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Chancellor George Osborne has abandoned targets to restore government finances to a surplus by 2020.It had been the chancellor's most prized goal and had been driving austerity measures in previous budgets.It is thought that the government will raise borrowing, so it can avoid further cuts in spending or raising taxes.Paul Johnson, director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, told Mark Mardell that this was "not the end of austerity."  

Stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdown have put together a useful league table of the winners and losers on London's blue-chip index in the wake of the Brexit vote:

Best performing:

1. Fresnillo 32.7%
2. Randgold Resources 30.3%
3. Mediclinic International 15.0%
4. Shire 14.6%
5. AstraZeneca 14.6%
6. Diageo 13.8%
7. British American Tobacco 13.3%
8. BP 13.2%
9. Unilever 12.3%
10. GlaxoSmithKline 12.3%

Worst performing:

1. Royal Bank of Scotland Group -31.5%  
2. Taylor Wimpey -31.2%  
3. Persimmon -31.0%  
4. International Consolidated Airlines Group -29.9%  
5. Barratt Developments -29.8%  
6. Easyjet -29.2%  
7. Barclays -25.9%  
8. Dixons Carphone -25.1%  
9. Lloyds Banking Group -25.1%  
10. Berkeley Group Holdings -23.2%  

The list gives the share price change from the closing price on Thursday 23 June to close on Thursday 30 June.

Image source, Dairy Crest

The FTSE 250, which as regular readers of the Live Page will know is a better barometer of UK businesses than the FTSE 100, is back in positive territory today.

It was 16,343 points a short while ago - up 70 points.

Cheese maker Dairy Crest is among the big winners, rising 6.6% after it was upgraded by analysts. Shares in budget airline Wizz Air increased 6% as it continued to claw back Brexit losses.

At the bottom of the mid-cap FTSE 250 is Stagecoach, following a downgrade by analysts at JP Morgan. The transport group's shares were down nearly 10% a short while ago.

Image source, Getty Images

Moody's - one of the big three credit ratings agencies - has downgraded its outlook on the rating for the Bank of England from stable to negative in the wake of the Brexit vote. 

"The UK's decision to leave the European Union has credit implications for many of the country's debt issuers because the prolonged period of uncertainty facing the country will weigh on economic growth and increase financial market volatility," it says. "The outlook changes reflect the entities' close economic, financial and institutional linkages with the UK sovereign."

Moody's has also lowered the rating outlooks on 52 UK "sub-sovereign entities" - including local authorities, Transport for London and housing authorities - from stable to negative.     

More detail here., external

Image source, Getty Images

George Osborne only had "a slightly better than 50:50 chance" of making the target even before the EU referendum vote, according to Carl Emmerson, deputy director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The Chancellor first committed himself to returning the national finances to surplus by the end of the decade at the Conservative Party conference in 2013 and it became policy in the July budget of 2015.

But there have been questions ever since over whether that target could be met.

Kevin Peachey
Online personal finance reporter

Image source, Getty Images

First we had Mark Carney’s hint that interest rates could be cut in the summer, now we have the chancellor ditching a plan for a 2020 budget surplus.

For your personal finances this is likely to cut the cost of borrowing, lead to even worse returns for savers, add to the value of pension pots, and reduce the likelihood of additional tax rises or cuts to spending (such as benefits or public sector pay).

Read more here.

Kamal Ahmed
Economics editor

It is sometimes easy in these incredible political times to forget that for most people "it's the economy, stupid" still holds true.

For the UK economy, one of the most important passages of Theresa May's speech yesterday was when she signalled that George Osborne's "fiscal rule" (to produce a budget surplus by 2020) was for the Treasury shredding machine.

Now the Chancellor has said he agrees, arguing that the government must be "realistic" about its fiscal targets and that austerity policies could be eased.

My Treasury sources point out that the "rule" can be varied in "non-normal" times.

And these are pretty "non-normal" times.

Read the rest of Kamal Ahmed's blog here.

Image source, FT

Who said Brexit was all bad news? Politico's Alex Spence reports, external that sales of the Financial Times print edition were 600% higher last weekend as readers sought news and analysis about the vote to leave the European Union.

Online traffic also hit new records for the FT, with the Brexit poll tracker the most popular piece of journalism it has published - attracting almost 4 million page views.  

The FT now has 800,000 paying users - three quarters of whom are digital subscribers. 

Image source, AFP/Getty Images

Still on the subject of aviation, easyJet says it has started the process of acquiring an air operator certificate (AOC). An AOC would be issued by another EU country to give the airline continued access to Europe's single aviation market.

Reports suggested the AOC application was the first step towards possibly moving Easyjet's legal headquarters outside the UK. 

However, the airline stressed that it had no plans to move its main headquarters from Luton - "our home for 20 years".

After several days of pretty steep falls, easyJet shares are up almost 1% at £10.96. The stock has slipped 37% this year.

Image source, Getty Images

Searches for aircraft black boxes following crashes could become a thing of the past thanks to the new SwiftBroadband-Safety (SB-S) service from satellite communications firm Inmarsat.  

The service, which will be available on the Airbus A320 and A330 single aisle aircraft ranges, offers much faster communications between pilots, air traffic controllers and airlines and gives airlines new services such as the ability to continually track flights and stream data. The "black box in the Cloud" idea means that the data stored on a device in the plane will be instantly sent to a server. 

Eighty per cent of the world's commercial airliners are single aisle models.

Inmarsat is listed on the FTSE 100 and its shares have fallen almost 30% this year.

Here's the key section from George Osborne's comments at the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce... 

"Now, as the governor of the Bank of England said yesterday, the referendum result is as expected likely to lead to a significant negative shock for the British economy. How we respond will determine the impact on people’s jobs and on economic growth. The Bank of England can support demand. 

"The government must provide fiscal credibility, so we will continue to be tough on the deficit but we must be realistic about achieving a surplus by the end of this decade. This is precisely the flexibility that our rules provide for. 

"And we need to reduce uncertainty by moving as quickly as possible to a new relationship with Europe and being super competitive, open for business and free trading. That's the plan and we must set to it."

Image source, AP

Chancellor George Osborne has abandoned his target of restoring government finances to a surplus by 2020, the BBC has learned.

It had been the chancellor's most prized goal and had been driving austerity measures in previous budgets.

However, the Chancellor said the UK must be "realistic about achieving a surplus by the end of the decade".

Read more of this breaking story here.

Economics editor Kamal Ahmed tweets:

Image source, Reuters

The FTSE 100 is bumping along at around 6,525 points - 0.3% higher on the day.

Shares in gold and silver miner Fresnillo are leading the way with an increase of 4%, followed by Randgold Resources (whose goldmine is pictured) on 3% gains. 

However, financial stocks RBS and Old Mutual are dragging on the blue-chip index, falling 3% and 2% respectively.

Bernard Aw, a market strategist at IG, said the week hasn't "ended with tears", with the FTSE 100 having now recovered all its Brexit losses.

As Justice Secretary Michael Gove sets out his case to become Tory leader, BBC business producer Mark Broad tweets...

It comes after Boris Johnson - at that point the frontrunner for the leadership - said on Monday that "most sensible people" could see the Bank of England governor had done a "superb job".

Mr Carney clashed with some in the Leave camp who accused him of compromising the Bank's political impartiality during the referendum campaign.