UK Shares Muted Amid Political Uncertainty; Bunzl Tops FTSE 100
UK equities closed muted on Tuesday, with the FTSE 100 0.09% in the red, as investors weighed political uncertainty following Prime Minister Keir Starmer's resignation and the potential policies of likely successor Andy Burnham."Given the UK's poor fiscal position, perceptions that Burnham might pursue looser fiscal policy, and fading short-end pressures, we expect the yield curve to steepen in the next few months," Oxford Economics said, adding that it does not currently anticipate major changes to its baseline economic forecast.In the macro corner, Britain's private sector output remained in the contraction zone in June, mainly driven by sustained weakness in the services sector amid a decline in new business volumes. The S&P Global Flash UK PMI Composite Output Index hit a 14-month low of 49.4 in June, compared with 49.7 in the previous month and the expected 50.6."A disappointing June 'flash' PMI indicates that the economy contracted for a second successive month, albeit at only a 0.1% rate and merely flat-lining over the second quarter as a whole," S&P Global Chief Business Economist Chris Williamson said.Separately, total new orders in the UK manufacturing sector declined to -45% in June 2026 from -41% in the previous month, with order books now at their weakest since 2020, according to the Confederation of British Industry's industrial trends survey. Analysts expected -35%.Among individual stocks, Bunzl (BNZL.L) rose 5.60% to lead the FTSE 100 after the distribution and outsourcing group updated its first-half revenue outlook, citing encouraging volume growth. The company now expects revenue to increase 4% at constant exchange rates in the six months ending June 30, compared with its previous guidance of moderate growth.Information analytics group Relx (REL.L) gained 0.86% ahead of its interim results on July 23. "Recent meetings with REL management underpinned our positive view on strategic positioning and trading," Deutsche Bank Research said. "For 1H26E, we forecast good +7% LFL revenue growth... RELX looks well positioned to leverage its high-quality proprietary content and big model playbook, sitting on well invested big data infrastructure that LLMs/open market models would fail access or replicate."