A Conservative candidate for the next election has been dropped by the party after being photographed with a range of guns and rifles.

Robert Oulds, the prospective parliamentary candidate for Slough, appeared with the weaponry in a series of cameraphone images.

He told the Sun that they were taken at the home of a member of the Conservative association.

"I went round to this friend's house and he is a member of a licensed gun club and he showed me his firearms and that is it," Oulds said.

"They are all licensed and all legal. They are not mine."

However, the explanation failed to satisfy party chiefs.

Following a meeting with deputy party chairman Andrew Mackay, Oulds was removed from the candidates list.

"This was a serious error of judgement which was unacceptable in a parliamentary candidate. As a result we have had no choice but to remove him from the list," said Mackay.

Earlier, Labour had used the case to say Oulds was "just the tip of the iceberg".

"Not only is he a councillor and a Tory candidate for a key marginal, but he is also director of the Bruges Group, a key Tory network that has acted a focus for the right wing take over of the Tory party in the last 10 years," said Labour campaign spokesman Fraser Kemp.

"At every level of the Tory party people like Mr Oulds have been engaged on a long march to power.

"Like the Militant Tendency of the 1980s they have captured moribund party branches and bodies and formed tight networks with the aim of winkling-out the remnants of one nation Conservatism."