Telegraph letter was signed by 103 business leaders acting in a personal capacity, 27 of whom are Tory party donors

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

The letter signed by Conservative-supporting businesspeople and published in the Daily Telegraph is a traditional element of the general election campaign.

This year’s letter has been signed by 103 business leaders acting in a personal capacity, 27 of whom are Tory party donors. But there are notable absences from the list.

With the Tories fighting Labour claims that not everybody has gained from recent economic growth, this year’s letter emphasises job creation while also praising the reduction of corporation tax.

The Tory 100: captains of industry, party donors (and a few tax avoiders) Read more

The Conservatives did not admit to having orchestrated the letter. However, on the day of publication George Osborne toured two companies with links to the signatories – Britvic in Leeds and Marstons in Wolverhampton. Britvic’s chairman, Gerald Corbett, and Marstons’ chief executive, Ralph Findlay, had both signed the letter.

Sky reported that the Tory co-chairman Lord Feldman had been emailing business leaders asking them to add their signatures.

Labour research in January found that the Conservatives had received almost £20m from hedge fund managers, but none of them have signed the letter. Very few banking and private equity figures were among those listed on the front page of the Telegraph.

Instead, dozens of more low-profile business leaders were included. Many are Conservative donors, several of whom received honours and peerages under the coalition government.

According to Independent, David Cameron gave out 18 MBEs, OBEs, CBEs and knighthoods to signatories of the anti-Labour letter over the last parliament.

The former chairman of Marks and Spencer Lord Rose and JCB’s chairman, Lord Bamford, have both joined the House of Lords since Cameron became prime minister. They continue to publicly support the Conservatives.

A number of the signatories have attracted controversy in recent years. Rooney Anand, chief executive of the pub chain Greene King, lent his name to the letter. Greene King has been involved in a decade-long tax battle with HMRC over a tax scheme dismissed as “purely artificial” by the Tory MP Richard Bacon.

Margaret Hodge, chair of the Commons public accounts committee, cited the scheme used by Greene King as one of the most egregious examples of tax avoidance marketed by an accountancy firm. Greene King said it had been following advice from its accountants.

George Weston, chief executive of Associated British Foods and Wittington Investments, also signed the letter. Wittington, which owns Fortnum & Masons, has been accused of avoiding £10m of tax in the UK a year by using a Luxembourg holding company.

ABF was also accused of tax avoidance in Zambia, one of the poorest countries in the world. The charity ActionAid accused the company of paying “virtually no corporation tax” despite profits of $123m (£83m) between 2007 and 2013.

ABF has denied avoiding tax in Zambia. Wittington and ABF have insisted they pay the correct amount of tax.



Another signatory is Matt Moulding, chief executive of The Hut Group. The group became involved in a row after the chancellor clamped down on VAT avoidance on products shipped from the Channel Islands because the system was being “used by large companies to undercut shops on our high street”.



The Hut Group had shipped goods worth around £500m before the clampdown. After Osborne closed the loophole, which cost £130m in lost UK tax receipts each year, The Hut began sending some goods on a 7,000-mile round trip via locations such as Chicago before the goods reached customers in the UK.

Asked to explain the long route, The Hut said its delivery process “prioritises speed of order and customer service”.

Aidan Heavey, the founder of Tullow Oil and another signatory, has given more than £60,000 to the Conservatives in recent years. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that British ministers “lobbied heavily” for Tullow Oil after the company became involved in a row in Uganda over tax payments in 2011.

The then foreign secretary William Hague personally contacted Uganda’s president to “express his concern about the problems being experienced by Tullow”. A Foreign Office spokesman said at the time that Hague was supporting British businesses.

Another signatory is Mark Esiri, founder of the private equity firm Venrex. Esiri was involved in the sale of the stationery company Smythson, which employs Samantha Cameron.

Smythson was sold to a group of investors – including several Conservative donors – shortly before David Cameron was chosen to be leader of the Tory party in 2005. Samantha Cameron received a windfall of £430,000. Esiri is a long-term friend of the Cameron family.

The list is unusual as it includes a handful of foreign businessmen, including the American BP head Bob Dudley and Michael Gutman, the Australian executive director of the shopping centre giant Westfield Corporation.

One of the most high-profile supporters is Tidjane Thiam, the chief executive of Prudential. Thiam, who holds both British and Ivory Coast citizenship, is shortly leaving for Switzerland to head up Credit Suisse, the Zurich-based bank.

There are notably few women on the Telegraph list. One of the few women listed is Cassie Hutchings, the chief executive of GCH Capital. GCH’s chairman is Cassie’s father, Greg Hutchings, a Tory donor who resigned from the engineering group Tomkins in 2000 after it emerged that he had the use of four corporate jets, one helicopter and a company flat on London’s Eaton Square. GCH has given £65,000 to the Conservatives since 2010.

Some of the high-profile names who signed a similar letter five years ago, but do not appear this time around include Sir Christopher Gent, the former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, Simon Wolfson, the chief executive of Next, and Lord Harris, the former chief executive of Carpetright. Wolfson was given a peerage soon after the 2010 election.

Various other high-profile figures who supported the Conservatives in the 2010 campaign have disappeared, including the clothing tycoon Richard Caring, who was recently revealed to have asked HSBC’s Swiss private bank to supply him with £2.25m in cash.