EAST Lancashire's lone Tory MP Nigel Evans has demanded that "Townie Tony" Blair visits his Ribble Valley constituency to see the misery caused by his "complacent and arrogant approach" to agriculture and the countryside.

This week the Prime Minister made clear that he was not prepared to bail out farmers in crisis with unlimited sums of public money.

He told the National Farmers Union that extra government support depended on modernisation.

Mr Evans said: "Townie Tony has consistently failed to understand the problems of the countryside.

He should come and visit the North West and see for himself the misery that 1,000 days of Labour has brought to our farmers.

"Farmers are despairing at the arrogance of Townie Tony. He has done nothing to help ease the plight of Ribble Valley farmers.

"If he thinks the answer to the farming crisis is to lecture farmers on something he has no knowledge or experience of, then his arrogance knows no bounds. A smiling Townie Tony is not an answer to the crisis which has seen farming income support by 75 per cent since Labour came to power.

"Hill farmers now earn an average of £2,000 a year.

"Farmers want real action.

"They want to see an end to unfair competition from abroad, where animal welfare standards fall well below what is expected from the British public.

"They want to stop to unfair labelling so that only food that is British can be labelled as British.

"As long as this government fails to listen to the problems facing our farmers then the longer they will have to suffer.

"Townie Tony must come and visit the North West and meet with Ribble Valley farmers so that he can hear for himself how grave things really are."

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