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.
