MP DAVID Chaytor has sparked a row after bringing up allegations of postal vote rigging in the Commons.

Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, he reminded MPs of Bury council leader Bob Bibby's previous dealings with the police.

The Bury North backbencher was supposed to be asking Gordon Brown what he could do to help low income families facing economic pressure.

But as Tory MPs cheered his mention of Bury, which the Conservatives had won days before in the local elections, Mr Chaytor added: "In Bury, we now have the only Tory leader in the country who has been subject to a police investigation into fiddling pensioners' postal votes."

Coun Bibby was arrested by police in 2000 at Manchester Airport as he returned from a celebratory visit of 300 Bury residents to Woodbury in America.

They were looking at claims that residents at Moorfields old folks' home in Bury, then co-owned by Coun Bibby, were swayed when filling out their postal votes in that year's local elections.

Coun Bibby always denied any wrongdoing and, after 12 months, the Crown Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

Coun Bibby said Mr Chaytor must be afraid of losing his seat if he had to stoop so low.

"I think it was completely and utterly out of order, and had no relevance to what he was supposed to be asking," he said.

"If he wants to crawl out from under a stone and lower himself to that standard, let him carry on. I'm not going down that road.

"He is supposed to be the MP for the whole area, and I don't think it will go down well with his constituents."