What kind of example is it to others at a time when Parliament has just brought in legislation to try and deal with drunk and violent yobbos at football matches?

Nigel Jones MP

Cheltenham MP Nigel Jones launched his criticism during a conference debate on saving village pubs.

He said: "I have to tell you that anybody who drinks 14 pints of beer today is a complete and utter plonker.

"They are likely to damage their health and be a danger to anyone who gets in their way.

"What kind of example is it to others at a time when parliament has just brought in legislation to try and deal with drunk and violent yobbos at football matches?

And in a reference to Tory policy on asylum seekers Mr Jones said Mr Hague's claims were "bogus".

"A skinhead with a skinful. We all know what happens when you drink that amount, you lose your hair, you lose your political direction and you lose by-elections in Romsey also," Mr Jones quipped.

Hague's drink claim 'bogus'

"Billy, you're making a bogus claim," he asserted.

Mr Jones's taunts were not confined to the Tory leader.

He said: "Can you imagine bogus Billy going out on a 14-pint bender with say, Michael Portillo, or Edward Heath, or speeding Ann Widdecombe? She must be something else after 14 pints."

He urged Liberal Democrats to help Mr Hague if they ever found him "doing a Euan" - a reference to Prime Minister Tony Blair's eldest son who found passed out drunk in central London after celebrating the end of his GCSE exams.

"If you ever find bogus Billy Hague face down in the gutter performing what I understand these days is called "doing a Euan" please resist the temptation to attach a notice to him saying DNR - do not resuscitate.

"We want him leading the Tories into the next election so that people can compare him and his deadbeat crowd and his kneejerk policies with Charles Kennedy and our sensible, well thought-out properly costed policies."

Mr Jones's speech came just eight months after he was attacked at his constituency office by a man wielding a samurai sword.

Mr Jones suffered cuts to his hands in the attack in which his assistant Andrew Pennington died.