“Some people regard private enterprise as a
predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not
enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.”
Miliband gives all the indications that he would not know a healthy
horse if it hit him. You could argue I would say that wouldn’t I – but here is
what 3 former Labour business supporters say:
i). One of Labour party’s biggest business backers when Tony Blair was
leader has said he is now “frightened” by the idea of the party winning the
general election.
Sir Charles Dunstone, the co-founder of Carphone Warehouse, said business
people “feel very detached” from the party and “isolated” by its lurch to the
Left under Ed Miliband. Under Tony Blair he was one of the business people
who signed a letter supporting Labour.
But he told the Financial Times: “As a business person I’m frightened of an
environment where there isn’t sufficient emphasis put on growing the economy to
grow tax receipts to spend more." The comments come after Labour has
faced repeated criticism from business leaders and former donors for failing to
support businesses.
ii). Simon Walker, director-general of the Institute of Directors, says…
“It
is not that Ed is pro or anti-business, he is ‘abusiness’ — he doesn’t relate
to it or understand its needs, values or concerns.”
iii). Lord Noon, a Labour peer who has given hundreds of thousands of
pounds to the party, made his intervention after
Ed Balls’ inability this week
to recall a business donor’s name onthe BBC’s Newsnight, and
Ed Miliband’s failure to raise
the deficit in his conference speech last autumn.
In an interview with the Guardian, Noon said: “I cringed when
Balls forgot the name of a business backer and Ed forgot whole paragraphs
from his conference speech. It is very embarrassing”.
Gulam Noon, who has given nearly £873,000 to the party, £100,000 of that
since Miliband became leader, made his fortune from the manufacture of ready
meals and is worth an estimated £75m.
The peer even went so far as to suggest on Thursday that Labour’s leader and
the shadow chancellor should “eat almonds every day [said to improve brain
power] so they remember things when they are interviewed or speak in
public.”
SME's & Businesses create the jobs we all need - that must be the message from todays Chamber of Commerce conference - which Ed Miliband did not attend.
