Ed Miliband
Ed Miliband has endured a bruising month after business leaders lined to condemn his supposedly anti-business rhetoric Getty

Labour have responded after more than 100 business leaders signed a letter backing the Tory party with their own letter from "working people".

The letter, signed by people from "all walks of life" including working people and those on zero hour contracts, is in direct response to one published in the Daily Telegraph in which 103 heads of British firms backed a Tory-led government.

Labour said the letter proves Labour is the party who "put working people first" and don't only work for "those at the very top".

A huge bulk of those who signed the letter are said to be currently working on zero-hour contracts.

However, the party faces accusation oh hypocrisy after it emerged one of the signed the letter, designer Wayne Hemingway, has employed workers on zero-hour contracts in the past as well as advertised for a 20-hour a week internship which is paid in expenses only, reported the Independent.

Labour leader Ed Miliband vowed to end the "epidemic" of zero hour contacts and promised to pass a law which gives employees the right to a regular contract after 12 weeks if he is elected prime minister.

HemingwayDigital, the marketing division of Hemingway Design, advertised for a social media intern for a minimum term of three months at 20 hours a week which only offered expenses.

People were also employed on zero-hour contracts while working on Hemingway's development scheme on the Margate amusement park, Dreamland.

Wayne Hemingway
Wayne Hemingway was awarded an MBE in 2006 Getty

Hemingway admitted suing unpaid interns, but said there his company are no longer advertising such positions.

"[The position] was in 2013 and we have changed. It's not now, it's in the past, and we have changed. Are you not allowed to make mistakes?" he told BBC News.

"We still get colleges wanting to send students as part of their degree, as part of their qualifications, on internships. Now we are paying travel, we are paying food, we are paying various things, and in the future we may even pay all our interns."

The legitimacy of the letter backing the Tories has also come under scrutiny, given some of those who signed it included executives who are party donors, given peerage under the Tory leadership as well as close friends of Cameron.

Shadow buisness secretary Chuka Umunna already dismissed the letter as "nothing new".

Labour letter in full:

Dear Sir,

We all care about Britain's economy and we all have a stake in the future.

We are all working people. Some of us run businesses, large and small. Some of us used to work on zero hours contracts, some of us still do.

We come from all walks of life; this is what Britain looks like.

We believe that the fundamental choice at this election is: who does this country work for? Does it work only for those at the very top or does it work for working people – those trying to make ends meet, working in British businesses across the country to create wealth and support their families?

A symbol of the failure of this Government's economic plan is the proliferation of zero hours contracts which has helped fuel the low wage, low skill economy that is letting down working people and letting down Britain.

Britain only succeeds when working people succeed. We need a better plan for prosperity. We need a better plan and a better future. We need a Labour Government to put working people first.

Yours faithfully,

Aijaz Ahmad, Mandy Ambrose, Oware Ampem Darko, Stephen Anderson, Jonathan Austin, Stephen Barclay, Ann Barr, Trevor Beattie, Reece Berini, Emily Berrington, Andy Berrington, Fiona Binns, Paul Booth, Stacey Booth, Rema Boumerdassi, Melanie Bowers, Billy Boyle, Katy Bradbury, Matthew Brannigan, Darrell Brett, Matthew Burge, Nathaniel Butler, John Carden, Keith Clarke CBE, Naomi Collins, Kate Cragg, Kevin Craig, Marian Craig, Paul Cumming, Megan Davies, Phil Deary, Stuart Doran, Sean Duffy, Peter Duncan, Arnab Dutt, Arpita Dutt, Christophe Egret, Stephanie Elsy, Dominic Evans, Keith Peter Evans, Efe Ezekiel, Mary Foster, Bryan fowler, Maria Geogiou, Suzanne George, Ewan Gibbs, Margaret Gildea, Lauren Gilmore, Karen Gould, Charlie Hanson, Nathan Hardacre, Emily Harvey, Ryan Hebbs, Philip Hedley CBE, Wayne Hemingway MBE, Lee Henshaw, Samuel Higgins, Colin Hind, Deborah Hodson, Martyn Hopkinson, Anna Hudson, Peter Hurst, Alex Ingram, Julie Ingram, Joe Jennings, Paul Johnson, Graham Jones OBE, Jodi Jones" Emma Kane, Ali Kawa, Sophie Kennedy, Phil Loft, Helen Logan, Jo Lynn, Sir Michael Lyons, Richard Marshall, Eugene McCarthy, Billie McGann, Kevin McGrath, Clippy McKenna, Eibhlin McMenamin, Gina Miller, Colin Miller, Louise Mitchell, Reece Moore, Ghulam Murtuza" Jade Nicholls, Tunji Offeyi, Susie Orbach, Rui Paif, Fayyaza Patel, Ashik Shamji Patel, Norman Pickavance, John-Jo Pierce, Claire Pitcher, Keah Pownall, Nicola Purcell, Georgina Ramsey, Robert Robinson, J P Rocks, David Rose, Ian Rosenblatt, Katharine Sadler, Kemi Saidu, Tom Skinner, Natalie Smith, Darren Smith, Raphael Sofoluke, Rory Somerville, Jack Spooner, Danny Start, Florence Stencil-Wade, Vin Sumner, Osman Tango, Alice Tarry, Nick Teige , Kevin Terry, Narinder Thandi, Callie Thorpe, Melanie Todd, George Torr, Nicholas Turnbull, Robin Turner, Emma Vickers, Dale Vince, Stephanie Webster, Stuart Webster, Linzi Williams, , Stanley Wilson, George Wippich, Margaret Wood MBE, Derek Wyatt, Rachel Yemm, Baris Yerli, Michael Ziff, Sophie Growcoot ,

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