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Kemi Badenoch has accused an unnamed rival campaign of using "dirty tricks" by spreading "dishonest" and damaging claims about her to the media, ahead of an expected bid for the Conservative leadership.

The former business secretary is widely seen as a frontrunner to take over from Rishi Sunak, but has yet to announce her candidacy.

Despite this, she has claimed the rival campaign sent a “dirty dossier" to journalists and spread rumours she had secretly set up a leadership campaign website.

Ms Badenoch, who came fourth when Liz Truss won the leadership in September 2022, : "We can do better than this, and I will be saying and writing more about how in due course."

On Thursday, the Conservative-leaning magazine a profile going by the name of "Kemi" on a Nigerian website in the mid-2000s made a series of "direct, sometimes rude, often confrontational" comments.

These described Labour MP Diane Abbott as a "hypocrite", and argued about cultural and racial issues.

At the time, Ms Badenoch, who was raised in Nigeria, was studying for a law degree at Birkbeck University in London.

In her posts, she did not say whether she had made the comments - but noted they were "from 20 years ago".

She also rejected claims sent to journalists that she was running a “Kemi 4 Leader” website currently in maintenance mode.

She said she would "never run a site with such obvious errors" such as "using expensive proprietary images without paying for their use".

Ms Badenoch accused an unnamed journalist of contacting civil servants attempting to find "anyone willing to make bullying accusations about me”.

“One of them said her message was effectively encouraging them to break the civil service code,” she said.

Mrs Badenoch added: “I’m observing all this from a distance, as it’s the first day of my kids’ school holiday.

“But these three examples show how so much of the discourse across the political spectrum is obsessed with the petty and the puerile.

“We can do better than this, and I will be saying and writing more about how in due course.”

The 44-year-old was first elected as an MP in 2017 and emerged as a darling of the right of her party during her years as women and equalities minister under Boris Johnson.

She previously ran for Conservative leader following Mr Johnson's resignation of and came fourth despite starting the race with a relatively low-profile.

She is now seen as a frontrunner - consistently attracting high approval ratings among party members in surveys conducted by Tory-supporting website Conservative ���˿���.