WITNEY MP David Cameron has come under fire for urging people to support local businesses – in a report printed in Surrey.

In the Conservative Party leader’s annual report to electors in his constituency, he encourages people to keep trade local.

However, the four-page report, which is understood to have been distributed to 44,000 homes in west Oxfordshire, was printed in Guildford.

Pensioner Grant Paton, 70, of Queen’s Lane, Eynsham, accused his MP of saying one thing and doing another.

He said: “There are a great deal of printing firms in Oxfordshire that would be perfectly capable of printing this sort of material.

“On one hand, Mr Cameron is saying he fully backs the local campaign and then, on the other, he goes and gets it printed in Guildford.”

He added: “I would have thought that out of all the companies in Oxfordshire, some of them must be able to do this, even if they couldn’t quite match the price.

“By going to Guildford, you are not going to one of the cheapest parts of the country.

“It is the principle of the thing – because he is saying he fully supports local businesses, yet he goes somewhere else other than Oxfordshire.

“It does seem slightly like double standards.”

Mr Cameron’s spokesman Caroline Preston said that the decision about where to print the report had been out of the MP’s hands, although she stressed that he and his “local team” had written it.

She said: “In this instance, the printing of the newsletter was organised and paid for by Conservative Party headquarters and I understand it was necessary to use their contracted printers to ensure costs were kept down and because of timescale constraints.

“With all printing requirements which are commissioned locally, it is our policy to use local printers wherever possible.

“This newsletter was paid for by local party funds and not from any Parliamentary allowance.”

She added: “David uses local printers for things like his Christmas cards, 18th birthday cards and surgery posters and will continue do so.

“For all local authority elections each year the Conservative Party in west Oxfordshire also uses local printers on every possible occasion to print its election leaflets, posters, calling cards, etc.”

At the beginning of the year Witney printing firm Alden Press closed down, making 106 people redundant.

Kalpana Peigne, of Seacourt environmental printing, in Oxford, said local companies should be approached first.

The marketing director said: “I think somebody at that level really ought to be practising what he preaches.

“Everybody can overlook things, everybody can make oversights, but at the end of the day it’s good that people have pointed this out and next time he should consider using a local company.

“Politicians really need to set an example.”

witney@oxfordmail.co.uk What do you think? Should our politicians practise what they preach? Write to Letters to the Editor, Oxford Mail, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0EJ, send us an email at letters@oxfordmail.co.uk or fax 01865 425554.