Ed Miliband accuses 'tax avoider' Boots CEO Stefano Pessina of 'lecturing' voters
Labour leader Ed Miliband has hit out at the "tax avoider" chief of Boots saying that he should not be "lecturing" British voters.
Stefano Pessina, the acting chief executive of Walgreens Alliance Boots, said at the weekend that Mr Miliband's policies would be a "catastrophe" for Britain and that Labour policies were "not helpful for business".
Speaking to ITV News, Mr Miliband said he didn't think that British voters would "take kindly to being lectured about how they should vote in the general election from someone who's a tax exile in Monaco".
Mr Pessina told The Sunday Telegraph that the Labour leader's plans were "not helpful for business, not helpful for the country and in the end it probably won't be helpful for them".
The billionaire businessman, who has lived in Monaco for about three decades, oversaw the £46 million merger of Alliance Boots with American firm Walgreens.
The comments were seized upon by the Chancellor George Osborne who said they were a "clear warning from the head of one of Britain's biggest employers about the economic catastrophe the UK would suffer if Ed Miliband's policies were put into effect".
Today, Mr Miliband criticised what he described as an "unholy alliance" between the Conservative Party and "powerful interests".
He said that he was proud of Labour's agenda on countering tax avoidance.
A spokesman for Walgreens Boots Alliance said: