Letter: Why com­pany bosses like to back the win­ning horse

It may be attract­ive for busi­ness exec­ut­ives (“Big busi­nesses stay silent on polit­ical sup­port ahead of poll”, Report, May 30) to express their pref­er­ences in favour of one par­tic­u­lar polit­ical party over another on the grounds that by back­ing the “win­ning horse” they can later lobby min­is­ters for business-related favours.

In fact, the lar­ger the num­ber of FTSE 100 com­pan­ies back­ing a poten­tial “win­ning horse”, the less the busi­ness-related risk these com­pan­ies are faced with because, whatever the win­ning party, a future gov­ern­ment will have to work together with all busi­nesses to max­im­ise the coun­try’s eco­nomic pro­spects.

Pro­fessor Cos­tas Milas
Uni­versity of Liv­er­pool, UK