Keir Starmer is doomed - and for the same reason every Labour leader ends in ruin

All political careers end in failure, but Labour prime ministers fail in exactly the same way. Starmer will be no different. He was doomed the moment he won the leadership, and there's nothing he can do about it.

This is not to excuse his own failings. Starmer is a wooden, uninspiring politician, who can't even lie with conviction. Every leader bends the truth when it suits them, but most try to sugar the pill.

Starmer simply churns out whatever line he thinks necessary in that flat, nasal monotone, without bothering to dress it up.

Yet even if he were a political genius, he'd still be heading for disaster. Why? Because Labour is not built for power.

Its natural gift lies in opposition. The movement thrives on attacking capitalism, wealth, bosses, money and the Empire (someone should tell them it collapsed decades ago). Members are more comfortable waving Palestinian flags than British ones.

It wants to tear the system down, not run it. Once in government, it's lost. And it stays lost until voters finally lose patience and boot Labour out.

Rest assured, disgruntled voters will boot out this shambolic lot too. Given the chance, they'd do it today.

That's why Labour spent 18 years in opposition after Margaret Thatcher's 1979 victory, and another 14 after Gordon Brown was kicked out in 2010.

It takes them that long to persuade people they are fit to run the country again. But they're not. And they never will be.

No credible political party would have gone to the polls in 2015 with Ed Miliband as leader. No serious party would have given Jeremy Corbyn a shot at power. Twice.

Starmer pitched leftwards to win the Labour leadership in 2020. Once in charge, he ditched those commitments, because he knew voters wouldn't stomach them.

But by doing so, he betrayed the activists who put him there. Labour's left always ends up betrayed, because its demands are unrealistic. Every Labour leader is forced into the same cycle of lies, betrayal, internal dissent and humiliating electoral defeat.

Labour is built on a massive fault line, torn between idealistic dreams of resistance and the practical rigours of power.

In the 1970s, that contradiction destroyed Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan, when Labour's spending left Britain begging the IMF for a bailout.

Blair won three elections in a row by convincing voters he represented a new upgraded Labour, while the party's left battled to restore the old, failed version. They favoured Gordon Brown, who wasn't up to the job.

Starmer's not up to the job either. Nor is Rachel Reeves, Ed Miliband, David Lammy or the rest of them. And all for the same reason. Labour belongs in opposition, railing against capitalism and denouncing the world's unfairness. It has no place in power.

Sadly, the country must now endure four more years of failure but here's the worst. Once Labour is thrown out, it will regroup, return, and fail all over again. And in exactly the same way.