A FAILED Worcestershire parliamentary candidate who later dumped the Liberal Democrats to defect to the Tories has come under fire from his former campaign chief.

Veteran Councillor Charles Tucker, who helped mastermind Dennis Wharton's ultimately doomed bid to win West Worcestershire, says he was left "dumbfounded" by the switch.

As your Worcester News revealed on Wednesday, after trying to get elected on a campaign strongly criticising the Conservatives' record, Mr Wharton has now suddenly flipped sides.

Despite running a largely anti-Tory crusade before the elections, he now says if he was successful he would "probably" have dumped the Lib Dems in parliament to become a Conservative MP, leading to rival parties accusing him of turning the whole election into a sham.

Councillor Tucker said: "He was an effective campaigner full of enthusiasm and he was most definitely fighting the Tories.

"When I heard he'd switched you could have knocked me down with a feather, I was absolutely dumbfounded, it was a complete shock.

"It was a team effort and during that time, he gave me no impression at all that he was thinking of joining the Tories. Nothing whatsoever.

"I find what he says very hard to believe, it's like he's changing the facts after the event.

"During the hustings he was very gung-ho about fighting Harriett Baldwin (the Conservative MP for West Worcestershire)."

He also said he believed the switch is probably down to a fallout with Mr Wharton's constituency Lib Dem group in Watford, where his family is based, rather than anything brewed up in Worcestershire.

Mr Wharton finished in fourth place in May, 25,097 votes behind the Tories after running a campaign where he labelled them "irresponsible" over house building, claimed they could not be trusted on the economy and said they were "reckless" over public sector cuts.

But he has since told this newspaper that he felt uneasy about too many Lib Dem policies, citing their views on taxation and the Snoopers' Charter, which is aimed at monitoring terrorists.

"For several years now I have been struggling to find any good reasons to stay with the Lib Dems," he said.

"I am disappointed in their lack of vision - their policies are unfairly balanced, and are failing, therefore to appeal to the wider electorate."

He said that despite trying to get into parliament for the Lib Dems, he was privately unhappy with the party.