AN East Lancashire peer who dubbed Prime Minister David Cameron a ‘toffee-nosed slimebag’ has stood by his remarks.

Lord Tony Greaves, also a Liberal Democrat councillor in Pendle, told a national newspaper that ‘a lot of people in our party never liked Cameron’.

“Cameron behaved in a way which was dishonest and disloyal to his deputy and he should be thorough ashamed of himself,” Lord Greaves told the Lancashire Telegraph.

“Any lingering affection for Mr Cameron, as a person, within the party, has disappeared. People are very angry.”

His original comments were made in the wake of the alternative vote referendum, which resoundingly rejected electoral reform, and placed many members of the coalition on opposite sides of the fence.

And in Pendle the three-way split between the main parties continues, although Labour made three gains, the Tories one, with the Lib Dems down four.

Lord Greaves, whose party will discuss their future tactics at a group meeting on Friday, said: “We are disappointed with the results in Vivary Bridge and Craven but it was not a disaster.”

Former Labour MP Gordon Prentice, in his online blog, said the peer was ‘an angry man’ whose language was ‘crude and in-your-face’.

He also praised the efforts of his party colleagues in gaining Reedley from the Tories, and two Nelson seats from the Lib Dems.

No party is in overall control in Pendle.

Last term an alliance was formed between the Conservatives and Labour, from which the latter resigned in protest over coalition cuts.