to boycott the companies who are actively backing the tories?

[glinda]

Well, title says it all. 68 companies (or should I say, wealthy, over priviledged company bosses)have written to the Torygraph to back their old buddies. Fine. They are sticking with their mates but they will not have my business,

UGH!

have you got a link so I can boycott them too?

yanbu

Sorry, just heard about them on BBC news. I will try to find details for boycotting purposes without buying said paper!

Absolutely. Then when companies start laying off people because they can't afford the NIC you can boycott them as well. That way you can make an extra-big contribution to the economy.

At least one of the company bosses is a Labour advisor.

They're only backing the Tories plan to not increase NI ("the job tax") as Labour plan to do from a years time. Some of them are on Labour's business advisory board!

Fair enough to boycott any businesses who donate money to the Tories campaign fund if you want to, but boycotting businesses who just say that one of their policies will stop them from having to make job cuts seems ott.... You'd rather those businesses make people redundant in a years time would you?

Besides which, so many business leaders are now agreeing that the NI rise is a Bad Idea now that I think it'd pretty much leave you without anywhere to shop!

Businesses backing the Tories isn't such big news is it?

Oops some biggies here who might not enjoy the wrath of at least a proportion of the Mumsnet membership. Mothercare, Sainsbury's,
M&S, and many many more

Sir Anthony Bamford, Chairman, JCB

Bill Bolsover, Chief Executive, Aggregate Industries

Dominic Burke, Chief Executive, Jardine Lloyd Thompson

Ian Cheshire, Chief Executive, Kingfisher plc

Neil Clifford, Chief Executive, Kurt Geiger

Mick Davis, Chief Executive, Xstrata plc

Aidan Heavey Chief Executive, Tullow Oil plc

Lord Harris of Peckham, Chairman and Chief Executive, Carpetright plc

Justin King, Chief Executive, J Sainsbury plc

Sir Christopher Gent, Chairman, GlaxoSmithKline plc

Ben Gordon, Chief Executive, Mothercare plc

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Founder and Chairman, easyGroup

John Lovering, Chairman, Mitchells & Butlers plc

Graham Mackay, Chief Executive, SABMiller plc

Alistair McGeorge, Chief Executive, Matalan

Nicolas Moreau, Group Chief Executive, AXA UK

Stephen Murphy, Chief Executive, Virgin Group Ltd

Alan Parker, Chief Executive, Whitbread Plc

Sir Stuart Rose, Executive Chairman, Marks & Spencer plc

Paul Walsh, Chief Executive, Diageo Plc

Joseph Wan, Group Chief Executive, Harvey Nichols

Simon Wolfson, Chief Executive, Next plc

Zameer Choudrey, Chief Executive, Bestway Cash & Carry

Ron Dennis, Chairman, McLaren Group

Mark Elborne, Chief executive, GE UK

Brent Hoberman, co-founder of lastminute.com

Simon Fox, Chief executive, HMV Group

Richard Caring, Chairman, Soho House Group, and Caprice Group

Ted Tuppen, Chief executive, Enterprise Inns

John Griffin, founder of Addison Lee

Richard Warburton, Executive Director, Warburtons Ltd

Sir Nigel Rudd, Chairman, BAA

Paul Walker, Chief executive, Sage

Jamie Murray Wells, founder of Glasses Direct

Anya Hindmarch, handbag designer and entrepreneur

Gerald Corbett, Chairman, Britvic plc, SSL International

Philip Day, Chief executive, Edinburgh Woollen Mills

Hmm, timing is everything ...

Who would have thought, all those sirs and lords backing the Tories

It's hardly a moral issue is it? Can you explain why you disagree with their stance against the rise in NI? Or is it really that black and white?

I'm sure they'll really feel the pinch

I don't think they would be putting their names to this lightly, and they all know one hell of a lot more about business than Messrs Brown and Darling. I think it's a pretty damning indictment of the Labour policy on NI, which makes me wonder about their general competency (not that I wasn't very sceptical already). They've made a few clangers like this one - remember the abolition of the 10% rate of income tax?

There are many arguements against all the cuts that will have to be made, whoever is in Government. All cuts will hurt. I am not saying that this is a great cure all solution.
However, when all of these fat cats get together to argue against Government policy as soon as the election is called, it is niaive in the extreme to suggest that it is not an expression of support for the Tories.

I think you should talk about the proposed NI rise. It is about that issue, not about who is mates with who.

That may be so glinda. And...

I don't get it.

Why are you surprised that these business leaders support the Tories?

AND I HATE EVERYTHING THAT THEY STAND FOR!!!!
I am old enough to remember Thatcher - and I am very scared.

It will make it more expensive to employ people. Both the employer and the employee will pay more. The businesses that have come out against it think it will discourage job growth.

Either you agree with that point or you don't, it is silly to reduce it to "all business is evil".

OP - the Tories are not out in the third world peddling artificial milk to nursing mothers are they? There's a time to boycott and a time to research the actual issues (this is the second one).

These business leaders only care about money. The only way that we can make them consider the effects, morality, politics of their actions is if it hits them in the profits. A boycott is the only power that we consumers have.

YABU.

I am sorry, but you are not arguing your case at all well.

Riven, every business employing someone paying £5700 (I think) or more will have a 1% rise. So will every employee earning more than £20k (I think).

I don't know how many people Sainsburys employs, but this article from the BBC in 2002 says it was 142000

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1790958.stm

A 1% rise in NI, assuming the average salary in Sainsburys is £20k (again, not sure) would cost them an extra £28,400,000 (£28m) in National Insurance.

That is the equivalent of 1420 salaries - probably around 1000 jobs.

Of course, my numbers might be wrong - but they are the right sort of orders of magnitude.

The Labour counterargument is that cutting £6bn waste this financial year instead of starting to cut the waste next financial year will cause such a shock to the system that we will go back into recession. Also, that the efficiency savings are vague - but remember Labour themselves have identified £11bn of "waste" which is just as vague. They say that raising National Insurance is the least worst tax rise.

Which side you believe depends on your political beliefs really, not the facts.

I think a boycott is stupid, personally. If people genuinely believe (as I do) a tax on jobs will imperil the recovery, what is wrong with them saying so? I wouldn't boycott Amstrad just because Gordon Brown made Sir Alan Sugar a lord.