Letter from business leaders backing Labour lacks star quality - but shows party is being taken seriously

The round-robin letter of business leaders endorsing one party or another is a relatively new concept in British general elections. That is because, until around 30 years ago, business leaders were quite happy to nail their colours to the mast publicly. Big businesses would regularly make donations to political parties - mainly, but not always, the Conservatives - and individual business leaders were always happy to speak up in favour of certain politicians.

That support, though, had evaporated by the time of the 2010 general election and the less business-friendly Gordon Brown had taken over from Mr Blair. Not only had Mr Brown introduced a new top rate of income tax of 50p, he had also antagonised business by announcing a 1p increase in both employers' and employees' national insurance contributions to be introduced the following spring.

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