Keir Starmer is the perfect symbol for 2024: he can't win, even when he wins

WHAT exactly do you people want? Sir Keir Starmer has to contend with a progressive Left who call him a traitor and a Right who claim he is an insubstantial opportunist - but he'll still skip into the general election with a mighty 20-point lead in the polls.

- George Chesterton

Similarly, he faces demands to define his plan to deliver Britain from the mess bequeathed by five successive Tory leaders at the same time our expectations of politicians have sunk to a historic low.

Last week the Oxford Union debated the motion, "This House does not know what Labour stands for". Theo Adler-Williams, the union's chief-of-staff, said: "Labour is better than this, the electorate deserved better than being offered no substance." Are they? And do we? If Starmer did stand for anything he'd probably lose.

Starmer's Labour must be the broadest of broad churches and the biggest of big tents. One of the problems of being the default option for voters who will forgive almost anything just to see the back of the Tories is that it will be impossible to keep everyone happy for more than five minutes. Judging by the reaction to Starmer's U-turn on the £28 billion green investment pledge and his flip-flopping over Labour candidates with antisemitic tendencies, he is likely to enjoy a very short honeymoon as prime minister. He is being swept to power not on a wave of enthusiasm, but an overflow of raw sewage. It may stink from day one.