Corporate Britain on Monday night hit out at David Cameron’s “daft” decision to try to ­distance his party from big business, while voicing concern about the direction of Conservative policy on energy and transport.

The leading UK business organisations reacted with unease and some alarm to the shift in Tory rhetoric from last week’s initial defence of short selling to Monday’s threatened punishment of the “failings of bankers” and – by extension – “big business” as a whole.