A LEADING councillor has been branded hypocritical over leaflets attacking his former political allies.

Councillors Trevor Maxfield and Anthony Meleady say they have no official way to complain about accusations they have “let Darwen down”, contained in the Earcroft Focus.

The leaflet was issued by leader of the borough’s Lib Dems, Councillor David Foster.

The pair left the For Darwen Party, which was in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, and voted in favour of Labour taking control of the borough council, over controversial plans to close community facilities to save £4million.

Coun Maxfield and Meleady, who have become independants, claim there are a “a series of inaccuracies” in the leaflet, which asks for them to resign their seats.

They said the headline ‘Ex “For Darwen” Councillors defect to Labour’ was wrong, the claim they signed a 12 month partnership agreement in May, and that For Darwen councillor Andrew Graham “was not bothered” in turning up to the extraordinary meeting where control of the council changed.

Coun Maxfield said: “There’s all sorts not 100 per cent in there, including an attack on Andrew when he was on holiday and couldn’t get to the meeting.

“David Foster wants me us to resign, but I can think of at least two times where a councillor has left a party to join the Lib Dems, and he wasn’t calling for them to be re-elected then.

“There is nowhere we can report this to, because it’s not during an election, and it’s not something the council’s issued.

“We’ve been down that road before over a leaflet criticising the For Darwen Party and got nowhere, so all we will be doing is issuing our own explanation.”

Coun Foster denied the leaflet was misleading. He said: "They defected to Labour in the sense that they for voted for Labour. I think the leaflet is perfectly acceptable."

Coun Andrew Graham was unavailable for comment yesterday over the claims.