AN ELECTION leaflet claiming the Liberal Democrat party still has control of Pendle Council has sparked outrage from the area's MP Gordon Prentice.

The Labour MP said the Euro election leaflets featuring Sir Cyril Smith and Party leader Paddy Ashdown on the front, should have been destroyed.

He said: "These leaflets are being distributed all over the the North West - to millions of households and they contain a glaring lie. Pendle Council is not run by the Liberal Democrats.

"In fact, a month ago they were comprehensively trounced, losing seven seats and hanging on to three others by margins on one, nine and 19 votes. Their local leader said they lost the election."

Mr Prentice will be raising the issue with the regional returning officer and is writing to Paddy Ashdown.

Liberal Democrat regional media co-ordinator John Ault said: "I suggest Mr Prentice rings myself rather than getting in touch with the newspapers. The leaflet says we run councils like Liverpool, Stockport and Pendle, not that we still run Pendle. It was clearly written before the local council elections because we had to run off 2.75million copies.

"If Mr Prentice is willing to provide us with the money to reprint all the leaflets we would have done so."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.