Newsflash! Labour does have a business supporter – or so, at least, Ed Balls was able to disclose to Emily Maitlis on Newsnight. His name is Bill. But he couldn’t quite remember his surname. It was comedy gold, certainly my moment of the campaign so far.
Maitlis asked if Balls was worried that in 2001 there were 58 business leaders writing to the Times backing Labour, in 2005 there were 63 writing to the FT backing Labour. Where were they this time?
Ed Balls: I’ve been at a dinner tonight with a number of business-supporting Labour figures [sic]
Maitlis: who? who? who?
Ed Balls: Well, em, Bill. The former chief executive of EDS who I was just talking to…
Maitlis: The former chief executive of EDS…
Ed Balls: Of course. He’s a big supporter of ours.
Maitlis: What was his name?
Ed Balls: It has just gone from my head, which is a bit annoying at this time of night…
Maitlis.. Okay. So frankly you’ve got Bill somebody. Have we got anyone else? Cos you were talking about 63 or 50 FTSE100 leaders.
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