Video 'nasty' diary a Portillo nightmare

LONDON - A former assistant to Tory leader William Hague denies her secret election video diary was a deliberate attempt to derail Michael Portillo's Conservative leadership bid.

Amanda Platell, Hague's former press secretary, claims the shadow chancellor's aides repeatedly undermined the Tory leader at the height of the campaign in the video, which screened yesterday.

Shadow foreign secretary Francis Maude, now Portillo's leadership campaign manager, was one of those giving briefings against Hague, she claims.

Yesterday's broadcast occurred two days before Tory MPs decide which of the leadership candidates go through to the decisive membership election in a knockout ballot.

Platell admits her accusations in the documentary, which was filmed without Hague's knowledge, could spell "death to any potential, any wannabe leader."

But the former Sunday Express editor insisted the film was simply an attempt to correct a false image of Hague created by the media.

"This is a film about William Hague," she said. "Of course Michael Portillo and other members of the shadow cabinet are in it because they were part of the election, but it is not a film about Michael Portillo."

That has not convinced the shadow chancellor's supporters, who see it as a deliberate attempt to damage his leadership prospects.

Former colleagues of Hague who now endorse the shadow chancellor's leadership bid backed his version of events in statements issued by his aides.

Maude called Platell's accusations "absolutely, fundamentally, directly, diametrically the opposite of the truth."

"It is completely untrue that I at any stage told journalists publicly or privately that I was unhappy with our strategy," he said.

There were reports that Portillo aides were giving briefings against the Tory leader during the election campaign and the accusations had been expected ever since the video project was announced.

Platell is the first of Hague's team openly to make accusations of back-stabbing.

"That's all started already, of course it has," she told the video diary on May 31, a week before the June 7 election.

Recording another section three days before polling day, with any hope of victory fading, Platell said she was shocked by the behaviour of Maude and Portillo.

"I know it might sound a bit mean but I still find it slightly shocking that ... we're fighting so hard at the moment and ... all they're concentrating on is how they would pull it down."

The depiction of Portillo and Maude, who was also tipped as a potential leadership challenger, contrasted with the way leadership favourite Iain Duncan Smith emerged in the film.

Platell revealed senior party officials and Lord Strathclyde, Tory leader in the Lords, tried to persuade Hague not to stand down in the hours after the crushing defeat.

"Iain Duncan Smith came in and said, 'We've got to talk him around; he's the only man who can lead the party'," she said in the documentary.

On Sunday, in a pre-emptive strike against Platell's claims, Portillo predicted a "spiteful" effort.

"If there were an accurate account of the election campaign, that account would be one of how I supported William Hague every day," he said.

"Of how every day ... I was there encouraging him, saying, 'Go on, one more try today, more effort, be cheerful, go out there, make the most of this'."

There was more trouble for Portillo yesterday, when he was forced to deny claims about a Sunday newspaper report that Baroness Thatcher backed him over Duncan Smith.

A "furious" Thatcher reportedly blamed him for the story, which she said was false.

She issued a statement saying: "I do not hold the views which it attributes to me and I am not backing Michael Portillo against Iain Duncan Smith."

Platell resigned as Hague's press secretary when the video's existence was announced.

- AGENCIES