John Major has said that Labour's attempt to use the sleaze card at the last election has rebounded on Tony Blair's government.

Major, whose party was rocked by sleaze charges throughout the 1997 general election campaign, has said Labour's "smear and sneer" tactics were now backfiring on Tony Blair who is leading a government which is becoming "smellier than smelly".

Speaking out before he stands down from the House of Commons, Major calls on voters to "punish" Blair's government, which he says has "lied like no government before".

In an article with The Spectator, he accuses Labour of deliberately presenting a false picture. "Take one single issue - foxhunting. The prime minister did not vote against it in the Commons - nor did the Lords block the first anti-hunting bill, although time and time again he stated that they had.

"Certainly, factual embroidery is the primary instinct of his spin doctors; when they are in action it is difficult to tell the mud from the dirt. Labour corrupts information as a matter of routine if its is politically convenient to do so," says Major.

Major argues the public is now seeing that it is Labour which is the party of "sleaze".

"As the problems of mssrs Vaz, Robinson and Mandelson seep ever more into the public consciousness, Labour's moral superiority - 'we will be purer than pure', said the prime minister in his straight kind of guy mode - is crumbling on a daily basis.

"Labour's behaviour has the stench of 18th century Billingsgate about it; it can be smellier than smelly, not purer than pure."

Major also condemns the prime minister's press spokesman, Alastair Campbell, whom he says is "a loyal Blairite whose role is to prime the prime minister and the Labour Party and disparage their political opponents".

He says that the prime minister will pay the price for politicising the Whitehall machine.

"Blair must pay a price for removing civil service impartiality. I for one no longer believe a single word that comes from the government unless it has independent corroboration. As the honeymoon ends, others may begin to feel the same way," Major says.