Labour leader Ed Miliband has identified “inequality and the cost of living crisis” as the key election issue. It’s a positive theme that ties together Labour’s big ideas of late: an energy price freeze to keep heating costs down, a tax on bankers bonuses to fund social policy proposals, a rent ceiling to make rental properties affordable and a council-tax hike on the largest properties, designed to tackle spiralling house prices in London. It also has the arguable advantage of setting the party against a current public enemy – Big Business – or, at least, some of its best-paid employees.

A Populus opinion poll for the Financial Times has found that almost two-thirds of voters, including half of Conservative supporters, want the next government to be tougher with big business. Setting out a stall to do just that aligns Labour with 68% of its own voters, 66% of Lib Dems and 62% of UKIP supporters. On the tried-and-trusted principle of “my enemy’s enemy”, the populist approach ought to win some friends.

The apparent attack on business is at odds with New Labour’s approach in 1997, when the party was at pains to bond more strongly with business leaders in order to position itself as moderate and liberal on the economy. But while voters that year remembered militant Labour of the 1980s, voters in 2015 will have the more recent memory of a banking crisis and recession. And while Grant Shapps and others continue to paint Labour as “anti-business” – most recently in relation to Ed Miliband’s call for tougher national-interest tests on the potential takeover of AstraZeneca – there is a big difference between attacking big business and attacking business as a whole.

As the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) explains, SMEs account for 99.9% of all private-sector businesses in the UK, 59.3% of private-sector employment (with 14.4 million people under their roofs) and 48.1% of private-sector turnover. By contrast, in the finance and insurance sector, just 27.5% of employment is in SMEs. The sectors causing most disgruntlement of late are dominated by large firms with whom small-business owners and managers likely feel little affiliation. By targeting the biggest players and those who run them, Miliband can still make common cause with smaller operators – and claim support for the market economy.

So, despite the risks, Labour’s message on big business will appeal to voters. However, the party needs to make sure it separates big business and big company executives from smaller businesses and owner managers in its thinking. It needs a positive story about support for the “producers” not just a plan to attack the “predators”. A recent report from think tank the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) finds that SMEs are disproportionately driving the UK’s recent labour-market recovery. Between 2008 and 2011, 88% of individuals moving from unemployment into employment found work in either an SME or self-employment. Clearer support for the sector leading the jobs recovery would help Labour avoid being tarred with the “anti business” brush.

That said, a few words of caution to any political party thinking of attacking big business were provided by research earlier this year, which showed businesses to be more trusted than politicians themselves.  A coherent voice from the most reputable corporate leaders could yet make business detractors reconsider. That means politicians of all parties need to get their houses in order.