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VICIOUS backbiting is alive and kicking in the Tory party, a series of leaked private e-mails to David Cameron from his senior Commons aide have revealed.

In the messages Desmond Swayne, the leader’s parliamentary private secretary, calls one colleague a “mincehead”, another “Mr Angry”; a group of backbenchers “boring” and a forum of grassroots members “stooges”.

Swayne’s e-mails are in marked contrast to the polished and friendly image that Cameron has been trying to promote.

Francis Maude, the party chairman, is seen as “not yet trusted by the parliamentary party”. Swayne advises that Theresa May, the shadow Commons leader, is “neither liked nor trusted across the party”.

The messages paint a picture of Cameron trying to carry his party with him as he pushes through difficult reforms. The e-mails show that many MPs dislike his style and that he is facing a threat from simmering revolts over issues from Europe to nuclear power.

Senior members are said to be feeling “depression and even dismay” at Cameron’s “perceived silence” on the European Union.

On another key issue, Swayne tells Cameron to “beware” that Tories outside the shadow cabinet are “every single one of them” in favour of nuclear electricity and at odds with the “stridently anti- nuclear” stance of Zac Goldsmith, who is reviewing the party’s environment policies.

The e-mails also talk intriguingly of looming “colleague sackings” and “something dreadful” which happened to Swayne in Manchester, adding: “I cannot put it on paper”.

Swayne, 49, MP for New Forest West, wrote the e-mails over a few months this year. Most embarrassing for Cameron are the cutting remarks on senior colleagues, with Maude a prime target.

He is presented as weak, incompetent and distrusted by backbenchers. In one warning Swayne, who acts as Cameron’s “eyes and ears” in the parliamentary party, says the chairman should not be responsible for telling MPs about new rules on candidate selection.

Writing at the end of April, he tells Cameron: “If we have to inform colleagues . . . it is better coming from someone they trust. Francis may be right and he may be a likeable fellow but he is not yet trusted.”

Maude also receives a poor review for a “frightful” discussion forum at the party’s spring conference in Manchester in April this year. “If Francis is planning road shows, they will have to be a lot slicker,” writes Swayne.

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