Theresa May survives confidence vote, Christmas comes early for Dixons Carphone staff, and more top news

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UK Prime Minister Theresa May says she has a “renewed mission” to deliver “the Brexit people voted for” after surviving a no-confidence vote yesterday. The vote was called after 48 MPs from her Conservative party submitted letters of no-confidence in her leadership. May won 200 votes to 117 among the MPs in her party but still faces an uphill battle to convince Conservative MPs to back her withdrawal agreement.

Dixon’s Carphone has announced plans for a ￡30m share ownership scheme for some 30,000 employees, despite posting a ￡440m loss. The share incentive award scheme will see eligible employees given at least ￡1,000 in shares each over the next three years, in a bid to encourage staff to “behave like owners”. Dixon’s Carphone posted the hefty loss in the first six months of 2018 after writing down the value of mobile business Carphone Warehouse. The retailer, which employs more than 42,000 people in eight countries, confirmed it had no plans to shut any more stores.

Sainsbury’s and Asda have resorted to legal action to buy more time to argue the case for their ￡12bn merger. The supermarkets are seeking to take the Competition and Markets Authority to a judicial review over the timeline of its investigation, after the competition watchdog denied their request for an 11 day extension over Christmas. Britain's second and third-biggest supermarkets announced merger plans earlier this year. The deal would create a grocery powerhouse, with 2,800 stores across the UK and combined revenues of ￡51bn.

The BBC is under fire for going ￡27 million over budget on the redesign and expansion of the set of TV show Eastenders. The National Audit Office says that the broadcaster "will not be able to deliver value for money", after its revised budget for the project rose from ￡59.7m in 2015 to ￡86.5m. It will also be delayed by three years, from October 2020 to 2023. The original set of the show, which includes Albert Square, dates back to 1984 and was only intended to last for three years.

Up to half the weight of a Christmas chocolate box is packaging, a study has found. According to Which? the Ferrero Rocher tray is the worst offender – finding that of the total weight of the tray, 42% was packaging. Worse still, just 11% of that is recyclable. Marks and Spencers' The Big One had the least packaging by weight at 8.5%. Lindt Lindor was the most environmentally friendly, with only the chocolate wrappers not recyclable.

This story has been updated: From earlier: The government is under pressure to set a target to create 1 million manufacturing and hi-tech jobs by 2030.

Idea of the Day: When starting a new business, remember cash is king, says Lisa Unwin, founder of She’s Back, and be careful about taking on more liabilities before you know that the business is there.

“I’ve just seen a fabulous business, run by two amazing, energetic, committed women, go to the wall because they ran up too many debts before the cash came in. I believe the term is overtrading. Don’t do it.”

What's your take on today’s stories? Share your thoughts in the comments.  

— Natalie MacDonald