CAMERON CALLS FOR JUNE POLL

He said he was “absolutely ready” for an election and suggested June 4 when voters were already going to the polls for European and local elections.

Mr Cameron also said he had been “incredibly angry” about suggestions in emails sent by former Brown aide Damian McBride of obscene and unfounded smear stories to spread about Tories.

He repeated his call for an inquiry by Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell into “who knew what, who was involved”.

Calling for an election this year instead of 2010, Mr Cameron said Britain needed a Government capable of taking tough decisions on the national finances. Tories would also seek to clean up Labour’s culture of spin, he pledged. He added: “I have never said I or my team are somehow whiter than white. All I do say is politics can be different. Whether it is this stuff about smears or whatever, you can see they think about the short term all the time.

“We need a Government with a five-to-10-year horizon, not a five-minute one.”

Mr McBride could face moves to expel him from the party at meetings next month of Labour’s ruling national executive committee, it emerged yesterday.