Angela Rayner is a classic example of a blathering Labour Party hypocrite

Harold Wilson once said that "the Labour Party is a moral crusade or it is nothing". Claims like that helped build a climate of moral superiority within the movement where too many activists believed they had a monopoly on compassion. Such self-regard was riddled with hypocrisies as socialists failed to practise what they preach.

The Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is a classic example. This is a politician who blathers about the need for kindness in public life, yet calls her Tory opponents "scum". She trumpets her commitment to "equality", then seeks to introduce a special blasphemy law on Islamophobia to protect the sensitivities of Muslims.

Shrieking about housing shortages, her government has gone to war against second homeowners, but only this week it emerged she is building up an impressive property portfolio of her own, which includes a large period house in her constituency, a magnificent grace-and-favour residence in Whitehall and a luxurious £800,000 seafront flat in the town of Hove.

The stench from her double standards is now wafting along the Sussex coast. But other accusations of hypocrisy have been levelled against her. As a former trade union official with Unite, Rayner loved to attack the Conservatives for not negotiating effectively with the comrades.

In contrast, she boasted of her faith in partnership, telling the TUC Conference in 2023 that "we will work hand-in-hand with the trade unions". Nor was this just platform rhetoric. Rayner has overseen the passage of the Employment Bill, which gives extensive new powers to the unions, and makes it much easier to take industrial action.

Yet the applause for Rayner is increasingly muted. She has not only come under attack from the unions for her failure, as Local Government Secretary, to resolve the long-running dispute by refuse collectors in Birmingham, but her membership of the Unite union has also been suspended. Another row involves staff at her own Ministry of Housing and Local Government who have gone on strike to protest at moves to end working from home.

Earlier this week Fran Heathcote, the general secretary of the PCS union, declared that Rayner "talks the talk on workers' rights but she now has to walk the walk and settle the dispute".

Much of this agitation does not deserve to be treated seriously. After all, perpetual grievance is the default setting of the trade unions. But these problems point to a fundamental weakness in Labour's subservient relationship with the unions, which used to be the authentic voice of the working class but today are essentially a pressure group that seeks to defend entrenched privileges and outdated practices of the public sector.

There is a glaring dishonesty about Labour, which proclaims its non-partisan belief in the national interest but, in practice, remains the political wing of the trade union movement.

Reform of our state services is desperately needed but, while Labour is bankrolled by the comrades, the party will always be too compromised. Indeed, on coming to power last July, one of the new Government's first actions was to award inflation-busting pay settlements for most of the big public sector unions.

But that did not end the push for higher pay. On the contrary, the unions see that Labour is a pushover, so they become more militant and greedy. Last month's strike by resident doctors was potentially the start of an autumn of discontent, featuring walkouts by teachers, university staff, transport workers, civil servants and municipal officers.

What the Government should do is get tough with the unions by threatening strike bans for emergency workers, higher legal thresholds for stoppages, an end to the unions' immunity for damages caused by their turmoil, and perhaps even dismissals for the persistent troublemakers, as President Ronald Reagan did with the US air traffic controllers in 1981.

But Labour is far too entwined with the unions to do any of that. Despite the current discord, Rayner has said: "I will always stand up for trade union values. It's in my bones."

So Britain will have to endure more surrender to the bullies, causing ever greater decline.