Cherie Blair was today urged to pay back £7,700 the party spent on her hairstyle during last year’s general election campaign.

Ian Gibson, a Labour backbencher, said that he was "astonished" that much-needed election funds were used to settle the £275-a-day bill that the Prime Minister’s wife ran up before May’s poll.

The party’s response to the revelations that the Prime Minister’s wife had billed it was unapologetic: A Labour spokesman said last night: "So what? Mrs Blair worked fantastically hard during the election and visited more than 50 constituencies during the campaign and we won the election."

Mr Gibson said many people had put in huge efforts to secure Labour’s historic third term - but none would expect to have personal expenses met out of political funds.

"I was astonished by this. I would never think of having my hair paid for by the Labour Party," he said. "Those funds are quite clearly for electioneering - leaflets and going doorstepping. That’s quite valuable to winning things, not the hairdo of the leader’s wife.

"We all have to look smart but you’re not going to The Dorchester each night when you’re campaigning."

Most grassroots supporters would find it difficult to accept their subscriptions and other contributions being spent in such a way, he suggested. Asked if the money should be repaid, he said: "Yes, I think it would be a smart political move."

Details of the spending were revealed by The Times today after the bill featured in the party’s accounts, which were submitted to the Electoral Commission, the elections watchdog. An invoice from Andre Suard, a stylist at Mayfair salon Michaeljohn, was declared to the Electoral Commission as an election expense.

The invoice apparently describes the services rendered to Labour’s election effort as "hair styling for Cherie Blair". Mr Suard charged a daily rate of £275 between April 6 and May 6, the day after her husband won Labour’s historic third term.

The disclosure has caused fury in Labour’s ranks as the party tried to motivate its demoralised and shrinking membership to fight another difficult round of local elections in which it faces heavy losses. Peter Kilfoyle, a backbench MP and former party official, protested that the bill was twice the sum spent on his own election campaign in Liverpool Walton.

Mr Kilfoyle said: "This is a real problem. We are almost accepting by stealth a First Lady. We don’t have a First Lady in our constitution, whether the Labour Party constitution or the unwritten British constitution; £7,000 could have been spent on political campaigning. We spent about £3,500 on our election [in Liverpool Walton]. It would be a very healthy contribution in many seats."

The news emerged at a time when Labour stands accused of accepting millions of pounds in secret loans from wealthy backers, in its efforts to scrape together enough cash to fund its re-election campaign.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman has refused to comment on the Labour Party’s bill for Mrs Blair’s hairdresser, but he insisted that she footed the Bill whenever Mr Suard travelled with her on official trips as the wife of the Prime Minister, as opposed to the Labour Party leader. That included a recent visit to Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia.

"We have dealt with this issue repeatedly and the answer has always been the same, which is that Mrs Blair meets the cost, full stop," he told reporters.

Mrs Blair was involved in campaigning - mainly separately from her husband - right up to the eve of the poll when she met a group of mainly Asian women at a Leeds community centre.

Sandra Howard, wife of then Tory leader Michael, made a wry allusion to Mrs Blair's costly hairdressing habits in her online diary of the campaign.

It emerged today that Mrs Howard also claimed money from party funds for hairdressing during the election campaign. But the ex-model’s bill was just £65.

A spokesman said: "That’s less than 1 per cent of Mrs Blair’s bill. It’s an interesting contrast, to say the least."

Labour spent £17.9 million on its 2005 general election campaign, far exceeding the £10.9 million bill for the 2001 election. Its biggest bill last year was for advertising, which made up 29 per cent of its spending.

It spent 16 per cent of the total on rallies and campaign events, 15 per cent on direct mail leaflets and 12 per cent each on transport and "overheads and general administration" — a category wide enough to cover the hair-styling bills of the leader’s wife.

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