No-one's fooled by Conservative Iraq war conversion, says Exley-Moore.

11.40.49am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 25th Apr 2005

The Conservatives aren't fit to govern this country, given their spineless behaviour over the Iraq invasion, says Tania Exley-Moore, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Scarborough and Whitby.

'The Conservatives were Blair's cheerleaders in the run up to the war, and now that the war is an election issue they're backing down and trying to distance themselves from their rush to war.'

'It won't do. The Liberal Democrats were against the Bush-Blair war from the start and we didn't change our mind even when the going got tough: that is politics with principle.'

'Changing your mind, like Tories have done over the weekend, backing down, is disgraceful and unprincipled. They voted to send British troops to war, and now they're abandoning them because it doesn't suit their failing election campaign.'

'In Scarborough on Saturday I said that if elected I'd campaign for an immediate withdrawal of British troops for Iraq. We're now an unwelcome army of occupation, and that's not a responsible foreign policy in these uncertain times.'