LABOUR’S candidate for Stourbridge in the General Election says he has “absolutely” accepted a £1,000 donation from former Prime Minister Tony Blair to help the party fight key seats.

Councillor Pete Lowe, leader of Dudley Council and Labour’s Parliamentary candidate for the May 7 election, has defended his decision to take the cash handout from Mr Blair who has offered £1,000 donations to each of the party’s 106 battleground seats.

Pete, councillor for Lye and Stourbridge North, said: ”We’re not a party of millionaires. We need to be able to fight a community campaign and every penny counts.”

He said the party has “accepted donations from voluntary organisations with a soft right perspective and trade unions with a left wing perspective” and he stressed he’s neither a staunch supporter or defender of the former PM although he said he does commend him for “progressive policies” such as introducing the national minimum wage and restoring trade union rights at GCHQ.

And cllr Lowe added: “He was a Labour Prime Minister who was elected three times and who was significantly better than either of the two Tory Prime Ministers who went before him.”

However, cllr Lowe’s political opponent Jim Carver MEP, UKIP’s Parliamentary candidate for Stourbridge, has blasted Mr Blair’s offer – labelling it the “Blair rich project”.

He said: “Targets seats, including Stourbridge, have been offered money by a man whose decisions in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan cost people's lives.

"This money, from a man who has become an embarrassment on the international stage, should have been refused. Those who accepted these donations should hang their heads in shame."

The Stourbridge seat is number 80 on the Labour Party’s list of 106 target seats.

Dudley South is number 74.

Labour's candidate there - Natasha Millward - says she also accepted the donation and added: "I didn’t agree with Tony Blair about Iraq but under his Labour Government we saw the introduction of the National Minimum Wage, a massive improvement in child care to help working parents, new maternity rights and tax credits that helped millions of our fellow citizens.

"I’m campaigning to go further for people in Dudley South. I want an increase to the National Minimum Wage to £8 an hour by 2020; 25 hours free childcare for three and four-year-olds of working parents; and an end to the cruel bedroom tax.

"I know these are the things that matter to people and that’s why I am campaigning day in day out to win here. Only with a Labour Government can we make these things happen."

Councillor Mike Wood, Conservative Party hopeful for Dudley South, said: "Obviously it's up to Natasha to decide who she accepts money from.

"But when you're taking a large donation from Tony Blair who probably now makes most of his money from advising governments like Kazakhstan, one of the most oppressive nations in the world, it becomes more difficult to take the moral high ground on cleaning up politics.

"I think there are a lot of traditional Labour supporters who would be very surprised to see the Labour candidate accept a donation from these sources."