The private equity community has criticised Ed Miliband for using sick and misleading slogans after he cited the US-based investor Blackstone a former owner of Southern Cross healthcare as an example of bad business in a speech made at the Labour Party Conference last month. The British Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (BVCA) accused the leader of the Labour Party of making misleading claims when he laid out the business world in terms of good and bad companies with private equity falling into the latter when he aligned such organisations with asset stripping.