ANKARA
An open letter signed by 5,000 small business owners on Monday supporting the Conservative Party in the run-up to next month’s general election has been revealed to have been organized by the party itself.
The letter, which appeared as the lead story on the front page of the Conservative-supporting Daily Telegraph on Monday, praised the ruling center-right party for being "genuinely committed to making sure Britain is open for business."
The letter was initially portrayed as an initiative from businessmen and women across the country.
However, a metadata tag on the PDF version available on the newspaper’s website showed the author to be “CCHQ admin” – an acronym for Conservative Campaign Headquarters.
Newspapers often repackage material from political parties they favor and the letter was available on the party’s website, with small business spokeswoman Karren Brady encouraging people to sign since last month, but the obvious link led to ridicule.
BBC political presenter Andrew Neil, a former editor of the Sunday Times, mocked Conservative lawmaker David Gauke over the mistake on his Daily Politics Show.
"This is a Conservative Central Office produced letter,” he said. “It's got CCHQ admin on it. It's your work. It's not like 5,000 businessmen have spontaneously decided to back the Tory party, you've rounded them up."
He added: "It is a piece of Tory propaganda."
Brady defended the letter. "I'm still being approached by a few hundred people asking to be added to the letter,” she told the BBC. “This is not a stunt."
The center-left Labour Party accused the Conservatives, also known as the Tory party, of spending "five years letting down Britain's small businesses.”
There are more than 5.2 million small businesses in the U.K. The 5,000 who signed the letter employ around 100,000 people.
