Simon Hughes has attacked government "collusion" with right wing press hysteria over asylum seekers.

Singling out David Blunkett and Tony Blair for sharp criticism, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman called on politicians to adopt a more "enlightened" discourse on migration issues.

The Bermondsey MP took the home secretary to task for sending "wrong and unhelpful signals" on immigration by becoming a right wing media patsy.

Blunkett to his "great discredit", said Hughes, is only too willing to play a press game if the photo opportunity is the right one.

"He is willing to condone the photographs of Czech asylum seekers getting on a plane to be sent home but to my knowledge has never called the press together for a photo opportunity of him welcoming people," he told the Brighton conference fringe.

"I regard that as morally unacceptable."

Writing in a Centre for Reform pamphlet, Hughes accused government ministers of working with some newspapers to promote fear and smear.

"The authorities [have] colluded with sections of the press to allow the manipulation of misleading facts to stoke fears and to attack political opponents who were accused of being 'soft' on refugees," he wrote.

The "unrepresentative" Express and Mail newspapers, complained Hughes, all too often helped set the government agenda

"They are not read by the majority of people, they are not representative of a majority view and yet because they speak so often in nationalistic terms they are unusually and unfortunately influential," he said.

Describing his own battles to overcome media prejudice on immigration issues, Hughes said he was "cut off" a Midlands radio show after challenging the presenter's assertion that Britain was being swamped by asylum seekers.

"You are talking bollocks," he told the DJ.

Hughes is concerned that some mainstream politicians are seeking to play on public fears after a series of setbacks for mainstream European parties.

Labour strategist Peter Mandelson has indicated that the government must take immigration issues on board to avoid the fate of social democrats in France and the Netherlands.

But Hughes disagrees, and urged all parties to put enlightened thinking ahead of a short-term appeal to prejudice.

"It's about leading opinion not following it, about changing attitudes not pandering to them, about building communities not keeping people apart," he said.

"About getting the right messages across not accepting messages that others want to put on the public agenda."

In a bid to re-establish his liberal credentials after a crime "crackdown" speech and following his attempt to kick controversial porn policy debates into touch, Hughes accused many in Britain of having double standards on immigration.

"People have always moved around the world," he said.

"Half the world was pink once. It wasn't pink because we were overcrowded in Britain. It was pink because people thought we could bring something by going somewhere else That opportunities were better somewhere else, we could trade better somewhere else, there was economic benefit somewhere else."

"When people suddenly want to come to us, saying that you in Europe are richer than where we are, perhaps you have more opportunities for us to do well than where we are...then suddenly we start putting up the drawbridges."

Hughes said it is hypocrisy for the prime minister to travel the globe preaching on human rights issues when the UK government shows a cavalier disregard for asylum seekers' rights domestically.

"Tony Blair, the prime minister, goes around the world preaching human rights and respect for them - if we are going to preach human rights abroad we need to practice human rights at home," he said.