Similarly "all political careers end in failure" [1]. Why? Because, to succeed in politics is to achieve power. And leaders who achieve high office never willin

Similarly "all political careers end in failure" [1]. Why? Because, to succeed in politics is to achieve power. And leaders who achieve high office never willingly relinquish it. The excess of self belief that propelled them to the top prevents them seeing their own faults. Hence the greatest value of democracy (IMHO), which is not to chose govts, but to remove them. Term limits are a good idea for the same reason. Exercise for the reader: contrast with autocracies. There are many recent confirmatory examples: Blair, Brown, Trump, May, Sarkozy, Netanyahu. I can only think of two examples of democratic leaders voluntarily leaving office in recent years: David Cameron in 2016 after losing the Brexit vote, and Nelson Mandela, after a single term as president. [1] Enoch Powell