Labour Party’s mask has slipped — and it could be Keir Starmer’s Achilles heel

Labour’s latest WhatsApp scandal is more than an embarrassment – it reveals that a fatal thuggishness has yet to be exorcised from the heart of the party.

Voters will be bewildered that someone Sir considered fit to serve as a health minister would joke about wanting a 72-year-old non-Labour voter dead.

Pensioners who were shocked when Labour axed universal winter fuel payments will ask: “Is this what they really think about us? Is this how they talk about us behind closed doors?”

It puts a new perspective on Labour’s decisions to rule out compensation for the Waspi women and to drag more pensioners into paying income tax with the freeze in the personal allowance.

The toxic banter which saturates the Whatsapp messages will trigger memories of the brutishness that has plagued the party in recent decades. Many people will disagree with the policies of and Diane Abbott – but the cruel mockery in the messages exposes a culture of saying horrible things about supposed comrades behind their backs.

This will not come as a surprise to people who have seen Labour at its worst. The party’s own investigation into activities in Liverpool in 2021 found reports of “bullying, factionalism, misogyny and dysfunction”.

The Tony Blair-Gordon Brown era was dogged by destructive and ruthless rivalry between factions. The late Chancellor Alistair Darling described in 2010 how the “forces of hell were unleashed” against him when he warned of the scale of peril facing the economy.

The anti-semitism scandals of the Corbyn era plunged the party into an era of utter turmoil. Frank Field resigned the Labour whip in 2018, complaining of “thuggish conduct” and warning of a “culture of intolerance, nastiness and intimidation”.

Sir worked wonders in rescuing Labour from opprobrium and irrelevance and delivering the summer’s landslide. But that majority will vanish if voters conclude that anyone who is not a diehard supporter is considered easy picking for a tax grab.

Today, farming families fear they will lose land they have tended for generations as a result of the latest inheritance tax raid; parents who have scrimped and saved because they think an independent school is right for their child are now walloped with tax. Experts warn that plans to hit employers with increased National Insurance contributions will threaten jobs and make it harder for people to get entry-level work.

Farmers, entrepreneurs, parents and pensioners will note that the Government was happy to hand out pay increases to pacify militant trade unions. They will ask why they are not accorded similar generosity and respect.

It is one thing for a Government to defend its most controversial policies as vital for the future of the country. But disaster awaits if it comes across as tin-eared and cold-hearted.

Labour thrives when voters see the party as a champion of values they treasure. The electorate does not hesitate to eject its MPs when they are seen as enemies of decency and fair play.

Theresa May once warned they were seen as the “nasty party”. Labour must avoid this fate.

Once again, Sir Keir needs to rescue its reputation.