A Labour party hopeful has “vehemently denied” using “unpleasant scare tactics” after a Mebyon Kernow candidate referred to his £1 million Port Navas house at an election hustings.

Michael Foster, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Camborne and Redruth, is alleged to have used a four letter expletive directed at Mebyon Kernow rival Loveday Jenkin at the event at Cornwall College, Camborne, and of threatening to “destroy” her, before approaching her at the end of the evening.

In a blog post on Sunday evening, the Cornwall Councillor and former Mebyon Kernow leader claimed she felt “nastily threatened” by Mr Foster, a former media agent whose clients included Chris Evans, Billie Piper and Sacha Baron Cohen.

She said the alleged attack came after he had answered a question relating to the mansion tax and asked if any of the audience knew someone with a million pound house, with Ms Jenkin smiling at the audience and pointing at him.

She claimed that when Mr Foster had finished speaking he turned to her and said, “If you pick on me again I will destroy you,” and added that when she was speaking to the audience later she could hear a voice from his direction saying very offensive words although she admitted that the comments may not have been addressed to her.

Ms Jenkin denied that she or any of her team had been the ones to bring the matter to the attention of a national newspaper, and said she would “much rather be talking about Mebyon Kernow's policies... than the unpleasant scare tactics of a rival candidate.”

She added: “I expect critical comments from opponents and normally I would pass these off as part of the rough and tumble of political debate but I have never felt so nastily threatened by an opponent.”

When asked about the incident, Mr Foster vehemently denied the accusations, which he described as “horrid and false,” and said that Ms Jenkin’s story had unravelled as it was made clear that all speech would have been picked up by the candidates’ shared microphones and broadcast to the audience.

He said: “There are many more serious issues – such as employment, under-funding, poverty and the NHS, in Camborne and Redruth than this.”

He said as a man from the “cut and thrust of media and business” he will not be a “bland politician slavishly towing the Westminster line” and he made no apology for being passionate about the people of his prospective constituency.

He added: “This very closely fought contest has been marked by the respect the candidates and parties have rightly shown each other.

“Loveday, by bringing in the Mail on Sunday and pulling this campaign into the gutter with these false allegations, has done the worst thing of bringing politics into disrepute.”