Queen guitarist Brian May has been called Tracey Crouch's "sugar daddy" by the head of the Countryside Alliance in a row on Twitter.

Tim Bonner, the chief executive of the organisation, made the comments on the social networking site after the guitarist called Miss Crouch's fellow minister Liz Truss, the environment secretary, a “heartless moneymaker”.

The MP for Chatham and Aylesford has since called Mr Bonner a "troll" after he sent her a number of tweets about the fact she took £5,000 from May as a registered donation.

Mr Bonner tweeted at the Conservative minister on Tuesday night, saying: “Solidarity for the sisterhood eh @tracey_crouch Are there any of your colleagues who your sugar daddy hasn’t abused?”

In the lead up to the general election, Brian May backed Miss Crouch as part of his Common Decency campaign which gave financial support to those candidates who were deemed to fit with the campaign's principles.

The guitarist visited Bradfields Academy in April with Miss Crouch and said: "We’ve worked with Tracey quite a bit because she’s a wonderful animal advocate.

“Even in the face of intimidation and bullying from the House of Commons and some of the people in her own party, she’s stood up and backed us on the badger cull and fox hunting. She’s a magnificent person, that’s all I can say."

Speaking to The Guardian, Miss Crouch said: “I think his behaviour is most unbecoming of the chief executive of an organisation I agree with a lot on, except foxhunting. I think he forgets we live in a free country and foxhunting is a free-vote issue regardless of position in party.”

The row comes just day before the annual Boxing Day hunts, at which around 250,000 riders and supporters are expected to gather in a symbol of protest against the Hunting Act, which came into force in 2005.

Mr May is a fierce opponent of fox-hunting and Miss Crouch was set to rebel against David Cameron's plans to relax the ban on the sport. The PM scrapped the plans when the SNP signaled they would block it.