A TOP Plymouth Labour politician has denied that he was part of a co-ordinated national campaign to smear the Conservatives.

In an article on a Labour Party website, Bill Stevens, a Devonport councillor and parliamentary candidate, linked Tory Steve Ricketts to the activist who staged a prank involving the missing toddler Madeleine McCann.

Mr Stevens's article was written on the same day that Downing Street advisor Damien McBride sent out emails plotting a smear campaign against the Conservatives nationally. He later resigned.

Mr Stevens has now also come under pressure to quit.

"It is absolutely horrendous to use Madeleine McCann as a political tool," said Mr Ricketts, a Cabinet member in the ruling Conservative group on Plymouth City Council.

"I stumbled across the article by Mr Stevens and I was shocked. I think it's completely sick. Is this a national campaign to slur everyone they can?

"They tried to put my name to something that is horrendous and that has absolutely nothing to do with me."

In his article published on January 13, Mr Stevens had called for the resignation of Mr Ricketts over alleged links to a young Conservative expelled from the Tory Party for dressing up as Madeleine McCann in a tasteless fancy dress party prank.

The expelled activist was a member of Conservative Future, where Mr Ricketts is a member of the national management executive.

Mr Ricketts hit back yesterday, saying he was "sickened" by the allegation. He called for the resignation of Mr Stevens and Luke Pollard, the Labour parliamentary candidate for South West Devon, who he claimed runs the website.

"I know Matt Lewis in the same way that I know hundreds of Conservative activists," Mr Ricketts said.

"But I wasn't at that fancy dress party – and I didn't even know where it was held."

A national Conservative Party spokesman said: "This Labour spin operation to cast aspersions on someone's character on the flimsiest basis is the politics of the gutter. People in Plymouth deserve better from their politicians."

The web page with Mr Stevens's article was removed yesterday morning, but Mr Stevens was unrepentant.

"I think it's good that the Conservatives dealt with that person [Matt Lewis, who dressed as Madeleine] so quickly, but the question remains of how widespread this is," he said.

"Is it a feature among young Conservatives that they like to go to parties and dress up as Madeleine McCann?

"No, Steve Ricketts wasn't at that party, but he is a big noise in the Conservative Future group. It looks as though there was someone from the Conservative Party over the weekend whingeing about the story. That's why we took it off the website. Mr Ricketts needs at the very least to apologise for his group having that sort of person in it."

Mr Stevens "categorically, 100 per cent" denied that he was invited by anyone within the Labour Party centrally to write the article. "This was purely off my own back," he said. "I discussed it with my local group. It is just a coincidence that it came out on January 13."

Gary Streeter, the Conservative MP for South West Devon, said: "The Labour Party is desperate to cling on to power, but this is not going to help them."

Plymouth Labour group leader Tudor Evans could not be contacted for a comment yesterday.