Will anyone believe anything Sir Keir Starmer says ever again?

If I or anyone else at this paper – or even commentators at died-in-the-wool true-blue journals such as the Daily Mail or Daily Telegraph – had written a column saying of the Labour Prime Minister and his government that “the sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale”, we would be told to tone it down.

Such letters of resignation or dismissal are normally polite affairs, full of platitudes, insincerity and homilies designed to paper over cracks and put on a brave face. This time Rosie Duffield has told it like it really is and we should all give our thanks to her – even those still finding it possible to stomach Sir Keir Starmer’s behaviour.

Duffield’s words are the literary equivalent of paint stripper poured over Starmer’s character, leaving a prominent bleached stain after melting his designer specs and going right through his designer suit to where his heart is meant to be. The Prime Minister’s reply will tell us if politically it is still beating or if he is indeed the indifferent technocrat Rosie Duffield accuses him of being.

Sir Keir Starmer says it's fair to take away WInter Fuel Payment from OAPs who don't need it, but he - a millionaire - is happy to take a £14,000 donation to pay for a study space for his son, notes reader (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

“As Prime Minister, your managerial style and technocratic approach, and lack of basic politics and political instincts, have come crashing down on us as a party after we worked so hard, promised so much,” Duffield wrote.

Yet the breaking of promises on taxes and benefits by Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves came within the first few weeks of government and worse is in store with the Halloween Budget due at the end of October.

Duffield laid bare her embarrassment and shame at Starmer accepting gifts worth more than £100,000, including clothing, glasses and accommodation paid for by the Labour peer Lord Alli, while also being content to deprive the majority of pensioners from receiving the winter fuel allowance.

The policy is not a naïve or innocent mistake. The Labour Party’s own research of 2017, which Starmer would be fully aware of, suggested almost 4,000 pensioners would likely die of cold from such a change to the policy. If the research was not accurate, it did not stop Labour from using it to harangue the Conservatives into denying they were intending to make such a cut themselves.

Sir Keir Starmer. Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images

The research no doubt helped convince Starmer and his-then shadow chancellor, Ms Reeves, to make commitments that the winter fuel allowance would be safe with them.

Duffield put the policy at the heart of her resignation letter saying: “Forcing a vote [on the winter fuel payment] to make many older people iller and colder while you and your favourite colleagues enjoy free family trips to events most people would have to save hard for — why are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment?”

“I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.”

These are not low blows, but evidence-backed statements of fact about Starmer’s behaviour. Does he not have a filter? Does he not have any social awareness connecting him to the people Labour traditionally claims to represent? He’s the son of a toolmaker after all.

Politicians can be expected to have advisors on policy matters they might not be familiar with; they will need specialist communications advisors to deal with the media, private secretaries to keep their forward planning diary. A Labour prime minister should not need advisors to tell him when he is coming over as out of touch, as a supreme hypocrite for living the high life while others are being made to eek out a payment for the meter.

For a Labour Party leader, never mind a Prime Minister, knowing your natural audience and what they feel or think; understanding your own loyal supporters and how they might suffer is meant to be in the marrow of your bones. Robotic and able to confuse “sausages” with “hostages” – the Starmer we now have comes over more as an emotionless figure fresh out of the cloning pods from Invasion of the Body Snatchers than the authentic working-class Labour kid his marketing promised.

Duffield, elected as Canterbury’s first ever Labour MP in 2017, obviously thought she was not alone in feeling immensely embarrassed and let down.

“Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous,” she said. “I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.”

It can be argued that political parties should seek donations from private sponsors rather than take taxpayers’ money to keep them solvent, but there are reasons for having registers of interest so we can be sure their decisions and the policies they advocate cannot be bought.

Yet we know in the case of Dale Vince, the owner of a vegan food company that has donated over £5 million to the Labour Party, he wants meetings with government ministers to change the law requiring some meat and dairy to be provided in school meals during the course of a week. If decisions are to be made on merit and based on evidence of public interest, we need to be concerned about the real intent behind such donations.

Duffield confessed in her letter “right now, I cannot look my constituents in the eye and tell them that anything has changed”.

It is difficult to see how Labour makes this go away. If more keeps coming out, then the stain will become indelible and the first by-election, whenever it comes, will give the public the opportunity to say what they really think of Starmer’s “Change”.

- Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European parliaments.