Sir Keir Starmer is a control freak who can’t exercise control over his divided party, an authoritarian who has lost his authority. In his clumsy hands, attempted stitch-ups regularly unravel. That is certainly the case in the farce of Labour’s current Deputy Leadership contest, triggered by the resignation of property enthusiast Angela Rayner, whose much vaunted authenticity could not match her epic hypocrisy.

As she left office in a flood of tears and tax demands, Sir Keir was concerned that the battle for her succession would not only be a gigantic distraction for his beleaguered Government but could also serve as a focus for internal discontent against his own leadership. So he tried to manipulate the process by setting the threshold for nominations extremely high and then drastically curtailing the timetable. The crude aim was to deter anyone but Downing Street’s favoured choice.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, a cold-blooded, sour-faced class warrior who always looks like she would have been at home on the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution. During her first year in office, her two favourite activities seem to be smashing the private schools and liaising with the trade unions.

But as so often with cack-handed Keir, No 10’s manoeuvre is in danger of backfiring. Voices of anger and disillusion can be heard from the right and left of the party. “This is not a truly democratic contest,” said the backbencher Paula Barker. There have also been complaints that the role of Deputy Leader is too vague and ill-defined.

Indeed party grandee David Blunkett suggested earlier this week that the present election should be suspended to allow a review of the position. “I’m slightly bewildered as to why there wasn’t a pause,” he told the BBC.

Beyond these internal machinations, the most striking feature of this contest is how it has exposed the dismal calibre of the Parliamentary Labour Party. There was not one impressive politician in the group of the six MPs who initially declared their candidacies.

Among this confederacy of mediocrities was the south London MP Bell Ribiero-Addy, an advocate of wealth taxes and African slavery reparations, and Dame Emily Thornberry, the Queen of Metropolitan Condescension who was sacked from the Shadow Cabinet in 2014 for her online sneers at the flag of St.George.

Even Lucy Powell, Phillipson’s biggest rival, is hardly an inspiring figure. An architect of Ed Miliband’s disastrous 2015 general election campaign, she once shamefully dismissed concerns about the predatory rape gangs in northern England as nothing more than “dog whistle” politics.

This dearth of talent is in dramatic contrast to the stature of many past Labour Deputy Leaders. Over the 103 years of its existence stretching back to 1922, the post has been held by political legends like Clement Attlee, often regarded as the greatest peacetime Prime Minister of the 20th century; Herbert Morrison, the mastermind of Labour’s post-war domestic programme; Nye Bevan, the creator of the NHS; Roy Jenkins, a brilliant reforming Home Secretary; and Denis Healey, war hero and tough-minded Chancellor.

These big men were attracted to the Deputy Leadership not because the job offered power or personal advancement. It did neither. In fact Attlee is the only one ever to have reached No.10. But the post has always had tremendous symbolic significance. It can act as a force for unity, make up for some of the deficiencies of the leadership - as the ruggedly working-class John Prescott compensated for Tony Blair’s affluent background - and consolidate the political direction of the party.

That is why these contests can be so important. But none was ever crucial than in 1981, when radical firebrand Tony Benn challenged Denis Healey for the Deputy Leadership. Benn came within a whisker of victory, losing by just 0.8% of the vote. Despite the narrow margin. the result was a turning point in Labour history, heralding the start of the long fightback by the moderates against the hard left. If Benn had won, the party would have permanently broken.

But with its dire cast, this year’s contest will only confirm Labour’s divisions and decline.