A LETTER of support for the Conservatives from more than 5,000 small business owners has backfired after it emerged it was riddled with mistakes, duplicate names, and people who denied they had signed it.

Earlier in the election campaign The Daily Telegraph published a story that some fairly high profile business leaders had thrown their weight behind David Cameron in the form of a letter to the newspaper.

On Monday they repeated the idea. But scores of the small business owners who signed it – billed by The Telegraph as an exclusive but in fact part of an orchestrated campaign by the Tory press office - were duplicate names, including people who signed it four times.

Signatories to the letter, that was fronted by Karren Brady, the Conservative's Small Business Ambassador, said they would “like to see David Cameron and George Osborne given the chance to finish what they have started.”

Charity The Marsha Phoenix Memorial Trust said it had been included on the list without its knowledge or consent and demanded that its name was removed.

Aurum Solutions said its sales director received an email from Ms Brady and recalled clicking on the link to find out more, but he doesn't remember signing anything.

On Monday afternoon the Tory regional press officer sent me a list of the North-East signatories. They included Russell Borthwick, former managing director of Trinity Mirror in the North East, who was named on the list as the MD of Press Ahead even though he left the Sunderland-based PR company more than a year ago.

21C Pets Ltd and Body Check Flotation LTD were listed as North-East companies despite being based in Berkshire and Devon respectively. Even more off the map, was the website of signatory AIW that listed its address as: "opposite Chicken Republic, Akowonjo Road, Lagos, Nigeria". Clearly Conservative Central Office cast its net far and wide to find 5,000 supporters.

Among them was one enigmatic North-East boss whose surname was listed simply as V (for Vendetta perhaps?) as well as the heads of dormant companies.

Other names were of people who aren’t owners of small firms at all, but waiters, PAs, and retired. The list even included a Conservative club.

What a shambles.

Thank god then for Graham Robb – and there is a phrase you don’t hear very often. Looking down the list I was reassured to see it included the name of the Darlington PR man who is one of the Conservatives most active regional cheerleaders. If it emerges that Graham didn’t sign the letter then Cameron and Osborne are in big trouble on May 7.

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