WYRE Forest MP Mark Garnier appeared to forget which constituency he represents when he urged George Osborne to ignore "dog-end voters" who live in "outlying regions".

But he has assured his constituents that he did not mean them when he made the comments which he said have been taken out of context.

The senior Tory backbencher and member of the influential Commons Treasure Committee appeared to make the call to "wealth creators" at a meeting held by the free-market Institute of Economic Affairs think-tank to help prepare what should be in the Autumn Statement.

Speaking at the meeting, he said: "We need to be giving a much clearer message to them that they don't have to worry about politicians mucking around with tax rates in order to try and attract a few dog-end voters in the outlying regions of the country."

He then tried to correct himself, stressing that he had not meant to say those voters earning under £150,000 were "not important", adding: "But what is important is that businesses can feel surety in what is happening within tax rates."

Kidderminster resident Lawrence Landezzo challenged Mr Garnier on Twitter following the emergence of the comments but has received no reply.

He said: "Mark Garnier has said dog-end voters, those who earn under £150,000, should be ignored. But that's 99 per cent of his own constituency."

Speaking to The Shuttle, Mr Garnier said his comments had been taken out of context and that he had not meant them to be offensive but only made them to illustrate the short comings of former prime minister Gordon Brown who raised top end tax rates from 40p to 50p at the end of Labour's reign because he was "scratching around for votes".

He said: "If you are an international businessman and you start seeing politicians mucking around with tax rates, you won't come and invest in that country. So what you need is a country that has economic surety.

"So making that point, what I was trying to say was that when Gordon Brown raised the top end rates of tax to 50p, what he was doing was he was prepared to put economic growth at jeopardy for dog-end voters.

"But when you take that and isolate that comment, it's an offensive comment. And while I didn't mean any offence at all, some people have taken it that way and I apologise profusely."