a liberal democrat Cabinet minister has warned David Cameron that the "outrageous" Conservative-led No campaign ahead of next month's referendum on the voting system risks inflicting permanent damage on the Coalition. Chris Huhne, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, told The Independent that the Prime Minister should intervene to stop the No camp telling "downright lies". He cited its claims that a switch to the alternative vote (aV) would require electronic counting machines and cost ?250m that could be spent on vital public services. "There is no truth whatever in these outrageous allegations," he said. "It is absolutely astonishing that it could come from our Coalition partners. I fear it could damage the Coalition and diminish the respect his Coalition partners have for him [Mr Cameron]. There is no doubt that if you behave in a thoroughly reprehensible and underhand manner you are going to lose the respect of people." asked whether the increasingly bitter referendum campaign could shorten the planned five-year life of the Coalition, Mr Huhne replied that he could not make predictions about the future and that the two parties still "have a job of work to do". But he warned that there would be "a lot of bad feeling" after the 5 May referendum unless there was a "fair fight", saying the two Coalition parties should observe a political equivalent of boxing's Queensberry rules. He accused the No camp of resorting to "out of order" behaviour that went "way beyond the normal cut and thrust of a general election campaign. I cannot remember a campaign where one side resorted to such underhand tactics." Mr Huhne rejected Mr Cameron's claim that he was responsible for the Conservative No campaign but not the wider No campaign. Describing the latter as a "Conservative front organisation", he said "all the moving parts" - such as the funding and the people running it - came from the Tories. "The only way you can explain why the Conservatives are acting in this way is desperation. They are clearly very worried about losing the vote," said Mr Huhne. "It seems the Conservatives are prepared to say virtually anything to try to win it." He said the Tories had enjoyed power for about two-thirds of the 20th century under first-past-the-post, even though they had won more than 50 pe