An article in The Daily Telegraph has claimed that the number of party members has slumped by up to 75,000 since Labour came to power in 1997.

But it has predicted that there will be an attempt to disguise this fact when Labour publishes its annual membership report next week.

It has accused the party of trying to mislead the public by continuing to include in the count supporters whose membership lapsed more than six months ago, but whose names have not yet been removed from Labour records.

The article said that as a result of this Labour would report that its membership had only fallen to 360,000 when the true figure was closer to 330,000.

After the general election Labour's membership peaked at 405,000 in January 1998.

But the party reported in August 1998 that there had been a "gentle decline" to 399,000.

It has now denied the claim that it has lost as many as 75,000 members since the election.