Watching Keir Starmer's desperate struggle to cling to office this week, I couldn't help remembering those Greek myths about mortals set impossible tasks by the gods. You know the ones. Poor old Sisyphus, condemned to push a boulder to the top of a hill only to see it roll back down again within a few feet of the summit, over and over again. Danaus's daughters, tasked with filling an enormous bath but forced to use sieves.
Tantalus, eternally hungry and thirsty, made to stand in a pool of water that receded every time he stooped to drink; overhead, branches laden with fruit that lifted up when he reached for them. Everyday, humdrum tasks compared with today's hopeless challenge – to lead Labour.
The job poses a ceaseless, unsolvable conundrum. On one side, a ruling elite that recognizes it can only ever win power by eschewing or watering down the hard-left principles that form the party bedrock. On the other, a mass-membership and swarm of ideologically-driven back-benchers who insist that those principles be honored and carried out to the letter.
It's a vicious circle that can never be squared. Look at Starmer. Go on, pick a policy. Let's take welfare. Starmer is as appalled and horrified by ballooning welfare spending as any self-respecting Tory or Reform voter.
He tried to slash it because he knows the country simply cannot afford to go on like this. Axing the winter fuel allowance; keeping the child benefit cap; a promise to launch a wider root-and-branch reform of benefits…
Policies and pledges all now ashes in his mouth. Every one abandoned, reversed, or kicked so far down the road as makes no difference.
Actually, Starmer's unachievable ambition to cut welfare is to some extent his Sisyphean rock – although the PM didn't even get the boulder close to the summit before he was ruthlessly barged aside by the party faithful and forced to watch the thing bounce and roll all the way back down to the bottom.
But unlike Sisyphus, Starmer won't try again. The boulder of welfare reform will remain put at the foot of the hill for the remainder of his term in office.
Speaking of which, watching his wretched writhing and flailing around this week, I couldn't help but wonder: what's the point? Why bother? You're not even clinging to power, because you don't really have any. And even if you did, you've just traded its tattered remnants in exchange for your cabinet's “support”. They own you now.
Aristotle said that democracy “is the worst form of despotism”. It is if you want to be the leader of the Labor Party, that's for sure.