British Conservative leadership candidate Mr Michael Portillo was tonight battling to persuade Tory MPs he did not betray Mr William Hague as they prepared to decide his political future.
The shadow chancellor and his supporters were aiming to limit any damage caused by the screening of video diaries compiled during the general election campaign by the Tory leader's then press secretary, Ms Amanda Platell.
She alleges in tonight's Channel Four 4 programme Unspun - Amanda Platell's Secret Diary- that Mr Portillo's aides knifed Mr Hague in the back at the height of the election.
Her claims raised the temperature in the three-sided contest to succeed Mr Hague, which pits Mr Portillo against Mr Kenneth Clarke and Mr Iain Duncan Smith.
Ms Platell claimed in her videos that Mr Francis Maude, Mr Portillo's leadership campaign manager, was among those privately rubbishing Mr Hague's strategy during the general election.
"I still find it slightly shocking that, you know, we're fighting so hard at the moment and to find that all they're concentrating on is how they would pull it down," she says at one point.
By contrast, Mr Duncan Smith, the shadow defence secretary, is portrayed as an ultra-loyal supporter of Mr Hague.
Mr Portillo has denied the programme's "spiteful" claims, insisting he supported Mr Hague "politically and emotionally" throughout the campaign.
And Mr Maude called Ms Platell's accusations "absolutely, fundamentally, directly, diametrically the opposite of the truth".
"If Amanda Platell had spent half as much time attacking the Labour Party as she has done for the last two years trashing William's senior colleagues, we would have had a rather better result," he said.
PA