Mon Dec 30, 9:25 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Prince Charles was accused of hypocrisy on Saturday for making a fervent "Buy British" appeal after signing a deal with the German car firm Audi.

The Sunday Mirror said Charles had signed a 100,000 pound ($160,000) deal to replace his British-assembled Vauxhall cars with Audis before he appealed to local government, the armed forces, schools and universities to buy British food.

"This is hypocrisy from the heir to the throne who appears not to care about workers in his own country," Labour parliamentarian Tom Watson said after the newspaper revealed details of the deal.

A spokeswoman for the prince said that she was only aware of one car bought from the luxury Audi unit of Volkswagen Ag to replace an Omega that is no longer produced by Vauxhall.

Asked about reports that up to six cars had been delivered, she said: "I really don't know. I can only assume they are cars that private individuals (working as royal staff) wanted to lease."

-- Anonymous, December 30, 2002