A campaigner for multiple sclerosis sufferers' rights made his feelings known to Prime Minister Tony Blair during his visit to Haworth.

David Samuels, the Oxenhope-based chairman of the Multiple Sclerosis Support Group, stood outside BrontParsonage with a banner proclaiming: "Your NICE people have put my son in a wheelchair. That's not nice Mr Blair".

The message, which refers to the National Institute of Clinical Excellence, the body which evaluates the effectiveness of medicines, was designed to highlight the plight of the 250,000 people with MS nationwide affected by the so-called postcode lottery of care.

While some health authorities provide the £10,000 a year course of the drug Beta Interferon, which it is argued reduces the affects of MS, others, including Bradford Health Authority, provide only a minority with the treatment.

The MS Support Group argues that some of the billions spent by the Government on overseas projects and aid would be better used treating the sick in Britain.

Mr Samuels, whose son Andrew has the condition, says: "I stood before Mr Blair and his faction with my poster, as a protest, decrying the scandal of the inability of the NHS to provide funding for MS sufferers and many other minority groups, while this Government spends £16 billion on aiding overseas countries with cash and kind."

The group is lobbying all UK MPs before the election in a bid to get support for its campaign.