Conservative party managers take their pre-election letters to the Daily Telegraph from business leaders terribly seriously. The exercise has become a ritual. The rounding-up of supporters starts months in advance and each letter must carry more signatories than the last.

On that narrow measure, Wednesday’s letter succeeds. There are 103 names versus 68 in 2010. The letter is also more of a full-throated call to vote Tory, rather than last time’s specific applause for George Osborne’s plan to halt a rise in national insurance.

Bankers are still absent from the list, presumably because their support would be deemed an electoral liability. Hedge fund managers and private equity tycoons are also a no-no. But a few notable names from the non-financial business world who signed last time are missing. Where’s Justin King, former Sainsbury’s boss? Lord Wolfson, chief executive of Next, is a Tory peer but is not there. Sir Christopher Gent, chairman of GlaxoSmithKline and another usual suspect, is not on the list.

That said, in terms of the overall range of support, the 2015 version is roughly as broad as last time (and, full disclosure: Brent Hoberman, a non-executive director of Guardian Media Group, owner of the Guardian, signed).

But do these letters from Tory-supporting business people win many votes? Is Ed Miliband damaged by having such opponents? One suspects the short answer to both questions is: probably not.

First, is anyone really surprised that the Conservative party can muster 100 supporters from the world of (mostly) big business? The surprise factor is approximately zero. By contrast, it was a minor revelation in 1997 when Tony Blair recruited some high-profile business names to Labour’s camp; it demonstrated support from non-traditional quarters.

Second, Labour can make an easy counter-punch. Miliband has positioned himself as a leader who is prepared to take on vested interests, from utility companies to banks, to the Murdoch press. It may do no electoral harm to be opposed by individuals who would be liable to pay income tax at Labour’s proposed top rate of 50p in the pound.

Small businesses, Labour can argue, would much prefer a cut in business rates to Osborne’s next reduction in corporation tax; Lord Rose, former boss of Marks & Spencer and now chairman of Ocado, struggled to give a convincing answer on the radio on Wednesday morning.

Third, while the letter argues that “this Conservative-led government has been good for business,” nowhere does it address the obvious economic shortcomings of the past five years. Productivity has fallen in the UK: output per hour worked is lower even than in 2007. Real living standards, at best, have flatlined in this parliament.

And, mostly notably in this context, business investment has stalled. If coalition-run Britain was such a fertile place for investment, why didn’t the corporate pounds flow and why is the UK’s current account deficit at a record 5.5%? Answers in the next letter to the Telegraph. Or not.

Troubled waters at BG

“The committee recognises that 2014 has been a particularly important year for the company on remuneration matters, and is grateful for the high level of engagement from shareholders,” says Sir John Hood, chair of BG Group’s pay committee, in this year’s annual report. He makes the process sound almost smooth.

Lest we forget, “engagement” involved several institutional shareholders, including Legal & General, speaking out publicly against the original £25m pay package offered to incoming chief executive Helge Lund.

They thought the “golden hello” portion was too large and were appalled that BG was prepared to break a supposedly binding three-year pay policy that shareholders had approved only six months earlier. Many agreed with Simon Walker, head of the Institute of Directors, that Lund was a top-notch hire but his package was “excessive, inflammatory and a red rag to the enemies of the free market.”

In the end, the company spared itself a high-risk vote on Lund’s award only because the man from Statoil agreed to accept less and to concede stiffer performance conditions.

Hood says he and his colleagues “will redouble our efforts” to engage with shareholders this year. Jolly good, but precise calibration of your toil is not required. It’s very simple: if your shareholders have approved a pay policy, stick to it.

Quindell cock-up

It was too much to ask that Quindell, source of so much entertainment in the past year, could sell 90% of itself without one final cock-up. So here it is, a mere two days after the £637m sale of the professional services division to Australian outfit Slater & Gordon was announced: the profit numbers for the departing business were wrong in the shareholder circular.



Fortunately, it matters little that the figure for the first half of 2014 should have been £130m, not £113m, and that somebody forgot to include the contributions of two software units the Australians are also taking.

The departure of those small units will leave rump Quindell looking even smaller. In practice, most shareholders couldn’t care less. All they want is the £500m special dividend that will follow the disposal, and that’s not affected one jot. No harm done, then, but we’ll miss these farces when, or if, they end.