DAN HODGES: Insiders tell me Starmer is in a ‘volcanic rage’ over Burnham ‘betrayal’. He’ll only listen to his wife now – and this is what Lady Starmer’s telling him to do…

Here we go again. Another weekend of Keir Starmer barricaded in Checkers with his loyal advisers. Another weekend where close friends tell anyone who will listen that our embattled but heroic Prime Minister is experiencing another tortuous, dark night in his soul. Another weekend that, if the increasingly desperate briefings from Camp Starmer are to be believed, will end with him emerging and announcing again that he has decided to fight bravely and selflessly.

The truth is that there is nothing brave or selfless about this boring ritual anymore. Starmer’s premiership is over. The best part of a year is over. And his insistence on continuing this dishonorable, self-indulgent comedy for an hour longer than necessary is a source of shame not only for himself, but also for the nation.

I was speaking to a former Starmer aide on Friday and asking whether they thought their former boss would eventually bow to political reality. They told me: ‘Honestly, it depends on what Morgan does. [McSweeney, his former chief of staff] and his wife, Victoria, tell him. They’re basically the only two people he listens to. They are his only truly close friends.’

It is certain that he now has few friends left among his parliamentary colleagues. In the hours after Andy Burnham’s victory at Makerfield, Sir Keir reached out to the members of his cabinet he considered the most loyal. Their answers shocked him.

‘He was waiting for them to say they thought he should keep fighting, and he was preparing to determine his strategy,’ one minister said. ‘He was stunned when they told him they thought it was time to set a timetable.’

Previous supporters Heidi Alexander, David Lammy and Bridget Phillipson are among those believed to have told the Prime Minister some unpleasant truths. If they had hoped that their pleas to put the party and the country before Starmer’s own arrogance and ambition would spur him to action, they would be sorely disappointed.

‘He is in a volcanic rage,’ an ally told me. ‘He feels betrayed. Not so much by the Cabinet, but by Andy and especially Wes Streeting. ‘He spits blood on them.’

The picture Downing Street is trying to paint is one of Starmer struggling determinedly and stoically in the face of mounting challenges. But the truth is that, as the end of his premiership approached, he retreated into fractious isolation.

Andy Burnham’s big win in Makerfield by-election could spell disaster for Starmer’s premiership

The problem is not just that the Prime Minister still refuses to listen to reason. He is no longer ready to accept even the advice of someone who does not tell him exactly what he wants to hear, namely the fiction without which the nation cannot cope.

After all, the last two people staying with him in bunker No. 10 are the chief of staff he had previously dismissed and his own wife. It seems that both have taken it upon themselves to hold Britain to ransom.

McSweeney, who has spent the last 48 hours circulating a briefing paper showing how Starmer could beat Andy Burnham in a future leadership contest, has long been hyped as a great political Machiavelli by many of the Prime Minister’s supporters. But judging by his recent interventions, the truth is that he is either a political imbecile, an ideological lunatic, or possibly both.

There is no longer any plausible way for the Prime Minister to survive. And there’s no way to derail Andy Burnham.

If Starmer tries to stand in the way of the charging Burnham juggernaut, it will become roadkill for Whitehall. His cabinet would unite against him. MPs would unite against him. The unions would unite against him. Every Labor Party member, from the Fabians to the Woodcraft Folk, would unite against him. At this point Labor Party members would unite and unceremoniously dismiss him.

And if Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff really can’t see it, that goes a long way to explaining why his boss is on the brink of political oblivion.

Then there’s the role of Starmer’s wife Victoria. Over the last 24 hours the Prime Minister’s allies have fanned out to announce that he will be the decisive voice in deciding whether the Prime Minister will resign or continue fighting. The consensus is that, appropriately enough, it would encourage research.

A pro-Starmer aide said: ‘Vic is of the view, ‘You should move on’. Another claimed he was ‘his rock’. ‘You hear second-hand that he was really pushing for her to stay.’

OK. But with all due respect to Lady Starmer, this is not her decision to make.

It is, of course, natural for any senior politician to discuss the issue of impending resignation with close family members. But that’s not what Starmer’s inner circle has been briefing on. According to them, Lady Starmer has a de facto veto over whether her husband remains in office or resigns.

And he shouldn’t have done this. He is not a cabinet member. He is not a member of parliament. There is no formal advisory role.

Up to this point, Downing Street has persistently insisted that he is completely separate from the political affairs of the Government and that he must be afforded the necessary privacy as a result. But suddenly we are being told that he is second-guessing the elected Cabinet, the elected MPs, the tens of thousands of people who voted in the Makerfield by-election and the millions who voted in the last local elections, and has ordered Sir Keir to stick his head in the sand.

When it was revealed that Boris Johnson was interfering with his wife Carrie’s government, she was branded as Carrie Antoinette and Princess Nut Nut. But now it seems we are all expected to stand back and admire the way Lady Victoria dictates who the British Prime Minister is.

I spoke to another minister over the weekend who told me that, once again, Keir Starmer had accepted that his term in office was over and was looking for a way to resign honourably.

But at the moment it is impossible to think of what could be less dignified than the disgusting, disgusting sight of Sir Keir hiding behind the gates of his rural retreat yet again, with his wife and cut-rate political Rasputin desperately trying to find a way to hold on to the seals of office for a few more days.

The truth is that there will no longer be any dignity in Keir Starmer leaving office. The only question is how much more humiliation he plans to inflict on himself and his country before this action takes place.