Billionaire switches support to Labour

Billionaire John Caudwell, a former major donor to the United Kingdom's Conservative Party, has said he would switch support to the Labour Party for the upcoming election on July 4.

"I can declare publicly that I will vote for Labour, and I encourage everybody to do the same," Caudwell said in a statement.

"We need a very strong Labour Government that can take extremely bold decisions and you can rest assured that I will be doing my best to influence them wherever I can, in putting the great back in Britain."

According to the latest opinion polls, Labour is predicted to secure a landslide victory in the upcoming election, a result that would end the Conservative Party's 14-year rule.

A poll by Ipsos released on Tuesday suggested that Labour could secure 453 seats compared to the Conservative's 115, giving them a hefty parliamentary majority of 256 seats.

Cauldwell made close to 1.5 billion pounds ($1.9 billion) in 2006 from selling his mobile phone retailer Phones 4u.

Despite donating half a million pounds to the Conservatives in 2019 to prevent what he saw as the potential disaster of then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister, Caudwell now plans to support Labour in the upcoming election due to frustration with the Conservative government.

Caudwell said: "For many years now I have been rather despairing about the performance of the party that I have supported for the last 51 years: the Tories."

He said he had been "amazed by how Keir Starmer has transformed the Labour Party and brought it back from that Corbyn brink".

"As I have always said, the government must be much more commercially minded to grow GDP in order to finance the public services that benefit all of society without increasing taxes."

Caudwell criticized Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's handling of the economy during his time as finance minister amid the COVID-19 pandemic, along with what he saw as a deterioration in ethical standards under former prime minister Boris Johnson. He also described former prime minister Liz Truss's brief leadership, which unsettled financial markets, as a "debacle".

In an interview with the BBC, he added: "The Labour Party in my estimation, as much as I disagree with some of the policies, are absolutely the very best for Britain going forward.

"What I see is a Labour Party committed to GDP growth and the environment. Without GDP growth you can't look after your social services. And without focusing on the environment there won't be a world to look after."

In a social media post, Labour leader Starmer said: "I'm delighted that John, someone with such a successful track-record in business, has today thrown his support behind the changed Labour Party that I lead.

"The message is clear: business backs change and economic stability with Labour, and rejects 5 more years of chaos and decline with the Tories."