MIKE Foster's office thought the Tories had resorted to desperate measures ahead of their party conference in Bournemouth.

The alarm bells started ringing when Mike's Westminster assistant, Margaret, was contacted by House of Commons officials. They warned her they had been forced to delete an e-mail she had been sent by Worcester Conservatives.

The reason? It contained a virus which, according to IT staff, could have caused mayhem on the Labour MP's computer system.

Margaret contacted her boss to warn that the Tories - who happened to be reeling from two shocking opinion poll results at the time - had turned to dirty tricks.

But her suspicions turned out to be unfounded. The Tories - whose message was headed "Greets", had unwittingly passed on the Bugbear virus which sparked panic across the country last week.

The search for the origin of the virus is now on and there are suggestions that it could have come from Korea or Singapore not Central Office.