A Tory MP has been told to stop posing for topless pictures by a council leader during a row about nuclear waste.

The Conservative MP for Milton Keynes North Ben Everitt posted pictures of himself swimming and sunbathing on X (formerly Twitter) in August as he trained for the Parliamentary Rugby World Cup.

The online public post attracted a scathing response from the Labour leader of Milton Keynes City Council Peter Marland this week amid a heated debate on nuclear waste.

The council leader pulled no punches when he said Everitt should instead spend more time serving constituents and criticised him over a free ski trip worth more than £2,000 he took in January.

The council leader’s comments came as he denied lying about what he called “plans to dump nuclear waste in Milton Keynes” despite the government issuing a flat-out denial of his claims.

READ MORE: Nuclear waste: Milton Keynes ‘not being considered’ as disposal site

Cllr Marland told Wednesday’s full council meeting: “I am not a liar. What you should do, what could have happened in these circumstances, is that the MP in question should put his shirt on and should stop taking thirst trap pictures.

“Get off the ski slope and actually start representing the people of Milton Keynes. What they should have said was, ‘the first I heard about this, I got on the phone, and I stopped it from happening’.”

The council leader spoke after Conservative councillor Liam Andrews suggested that the confidence in the council’s ability to keep necessary information confidential had been “destroyed” following Cllr Marland’s comments.

Everitt described Cllr Marland’s claims as a “complete fantasy” in a follow-up statement to the BBC Local Democracy Reporting Service after the meeting.

He said: “I don’t know why they’re still digging, having been so badly caught out scaremongering earlier this week.”

READ MORE: Labour councillor quits party over ‘toxic’ culture

He added: “Nuclear Waste Services have confirmed that no site in Milton Keynes has entered a consideration process by the government.

“For blindly obvious reasons. It’s not a plan. It never was a plan. It’s utterly misleading to claim there is or was a plan.”

The MP added that Cllr Marland should not have disclosed that a meeting had taken place between Nuclear Waste Services and the council, to alert the council that a private individual had made an enquiry about a site for the disposal of nuclear waste.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said that Nuclear Waste Services notifying the council of a party interested in a site to dispose of nuclear waste did not amount to a proposal for Milton Keynes to host nuclear waste.

A spokesperson said: “Nuclear Waste Services is not considering any locations in or near Milton Keynes as a site for the storage or disposal of radioactive waste.

“Milton Keynes was never formally part of the geological disposal facility process, which is based on the need for both a suitable site and a willing community.”