Accountant candidates reach out to electorate as FDs back Labour.

Labour has seen its support among finance directors increase massively, rocketing from just 14% before the 1997 General Election to 39% today, according to the Accountancy Age/Reed Personnel Big Question.

While FDs in this week’s survey endorsed the Labour government, the Conservatives were only two points behind on 37%. The Liberal Democrats scored 19%.

The new figure emerged as voters went to the polls and candidates like chartered accountant Justine Greening, Conservative candidate in Ealing, Acton and Shepherd’s Bush, took to the stump to do the last of their campaigning.

Greening, 32, who is standing for the first time in a constituency currently with a Labour majority of 15,647, said her campaigning had met with a ‘good reception’.

Price Waterhouse-trained, and business strategy manager with GlaxoSmithKline, she said: ‘I wanted to put some of my time into things that matter to me. For example, health education, welfare and the economy.’

She added: ‘Young people in particular are switching off. Politics is now more relevant to them than it has ever been.’