Tory attack on Cameron 'smear'

DAVID Cameron was locked in another damaging row with his own party last night as a leading Tory was suspended from the party’s list of priority candidates for the next election.

PRESSURE David Cameron yesterday PRESSURE: David Cameron yesterday

The Tory leader was embroiled in a war of words with Ali Miraj over the airwaves yesterday after he accused Mr Cameron of being obsessed with “box-ticking” and gimmickry.

And the row culminated in Miraj’s suspension from the Tory priority list of candidates to be an MP last night.

Mr Cameron was accused of “smearing” Mr Miraj by saying that  the 32-year-old had only attacked him after asking for and being turned down for a seat in the House of Lords.

The vicious spat was last night yet again overshadowing Tory efforts to publicise new policy proposals – this time on education.

But Mr Cameron showed no sign of wanting to soothe fraying Conservative nerves.

Instead of engaging with the actual significant points I was making, he is trying to smear me

Miraj

He had launched a ferocious attack on Mr Miraj – who had introduced the Tory leader at his campaign launch to be Tory leader less than two years ago.

“I think listeners will draw their own conclusions about someone who one day asks for a peerage, to be elevated to the House of Lords, and the next minute launches a great attack on the leader of the Conservative Party,” Mr Cameron told BBC Radio yesterday.

But then a furious Mr Miraj replied on the airwaves. He did not deny that he had asked for a peerage but claimed that Mr Cameron had ignored his concerns about the Tory party’s apparent drift.

Mr Miraj said: “Instead of engaging with the actual significant points I was making, he is trying to smear me now, which in my view is very disappointing and smacks of a complete lack of integrity.

“To be honest with you, a peerage is neither here nor there. I wanted to help David Cameron work and promote the party so that we win the next General Election. Peerage or no peerage is irrelevant – it is missing the entire point. The point is that I am concerned that PR and gimmickry has replaced substance and if that continues we will head to a fourth successive defeat at the next election.”

Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague denied that there was any smear involved.

“Ali Miraj is someone who has strongly supported David Cameron – a few months ago he said, ‘David Cameron is a brilliant guy doing his best to modernise the party’.

“I think we have to draw our own conclusions when someone who has expressed those views comes in and asks for a peerage, is denied one, and then goes out expressing the diametrically opposite view.”

There was speculation in Westminster last night that Mr Miraj could be on the brink of becoming the latest high-profile Tory defector to Labour.

Mr Miraj, a Muslim, sits on two Tory party policy groups.

The row came in the wake of a string of bad opinion poll results for Mr Cameron, the latest showing Labour six points ahead of the Tories in The Times and three points in the Independent.

And it follows interventions from senior figures including former treasurer Lord Kalms and former chairman Lord Saatchi.

Both have suggested that it is time the Tories started talking less about Africa and the environment and more about tax and helping hard-pressed families to prosper.

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