Here we go again. Another weekend with Keir Starmer barricaded in Chequers with his loyal advisers. Another weekend of his close friends explaining to anyone who will listen how our embattled but heroic Prime Minister is experiencing another tortuous, dark night of the soul. Another weekend which will – if the increasingly desperate briefings from Camp Starmer are to be believed – end with him emerging to announce again that he has decided to fight on bravely and selflessly.The reality is, of course, that there is nothing brave or selfless about this tedious ritual any more. Starmer’s premiership is over. It has been over for the best part of a year. And the fact that he insists on perpetuating this undignified, self-indulgent farce for an hour longer than necessary is an embarrassment not just to him but to the nation.On Friday I was talking to a former Starmer aide, asking whether they thought their old boss would finally bow to political reality. They told me: ‘To be honest it depends on what Morgan [McSweeney, his former chief of staff] and his wife Victoria say to him. They’re basically the only two people he listens to. They’re his only properly close friends.’It is certainly the case that he now has few friends left among his parliamentary colleagues. In the hours after Andy Burnham’s triumph in Makerfield, Sir Keir reached out to those members of his Cabinet he regarded as most loyal. Their response shocked him.‘He was expecting them to say they thought he should fight on, and was preparing to set out his strategy,’ a minister revealed. ‘When they told him they thought it was time to set out a timetable, he was stunned.’Among those who are believed to have told the Prime Minister some unpalatable home truths are previous supporters Heidi Alexander, David Lammy and Bridget Phillipson. Though if they were hoping their entreaties to place party and country ahead of Starmer’s own vanity and ambition would move him, they were to be sorely disappointed.‘He’s in a volcanic rage,’ one ally revealed to me. ‘He thinks he’s been betrayed. No so much by the Cabinet, but by Andy, and in particular Wes Streeting. He’s spitting blood over them.’The picture Downing Street have sought to paint is of Starmer determinedly and stoically soldiering on in the face of mounting adversity. But the truth is that, as the end of his premiership draws to its close, he has retreated into petulant isolation. Insiders say Keir Starmer will only heed the advice of his wife Victoria, as well as his former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney Andy Burnham's thumping victory in the Makerfield by-election could spell doom for Starmer's premiershipIt is not just that the Prime Minister is still seemingly refusing to listen to reason. He is no longer prepared to even acknowledge the counsel of anyone who doesn’t tell him precisely what he wants to here – namely the fiction the nation simply cannot cope without him.With the result that the last two people left in the No 10 bunker with him are his previously discarded chief of staff and his own wife. Both of whom, it seems, have taken it upon themselves to hold Britain to ransom.McSweeney, who spent the past 48 hours circulating a briefing document that purported to show how Starmer could best Andy Burnham in a future leadership contest, has long been hyped by many of the Prime Minister’s supporters as some great political Machiavelli. But, based on his recent interventions, the reality is he’s either a political imbecile, or an ideological lunatic, or quite possibly both.There is no conceivable path to survival for the Prime Minister now. Nor is there any way of derailing Andy Burnham.If Starmer tries to stand in the way of the onrushing Burnham juggernaut he will become Whitehall roadkill. His Cabinet would unite against him. His MPs would unite against him. The unions would unite against him. Every Labour affiliate from the Fabians to the Woodcraft Folk would unite against him. At which point the Labour Party membership would then unite to sling him unceremoniously out of office.And if Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff genuinely can’t see that, it goes a long way to explaining why his boss is about to be consigned to political oblivion.Then there is the role of Starmer’s wife Victoria. Over the past 24 hours, the PM’s allies have fanned out to brief that she will be the decisive voice in determining whether he steps down, or opts to fight on. With the consensus conveniently being that she will urge him to dig in.‘Vic is of the view, “You need to keep on going,”’ one pro-Starmer aide briefed. Another claimed she is ‘his rock’. ‘You hear second-hand she’s really pushing for him to stay.’OK. But with the greatest respect to Lady Starmer, that’s not her decision to make.It’s obviously natural that any senior politician would discuss the issue of their impending resignation with their close family members. But that is not what Starmer’s inner circle are briefing. According to them, Lady Starmer effectively has a veto of whether her husband stays in office or steps down.And she shouldn’t have. She is not a member of the Cabinet. She is not a Member of Parliament. She has no formal advisory role.Until this point Downing Street has strenuously insisted she is entirely divorced from the Government’s political affairs, and should be afforded due privacy as a result. Yet we’re suddenly being told she is second-guessing the elected Cabinet, elected MPs, the tens of thousands of people who voted in the Makerfield by-election and the millions who voted in the recent local elections, and is ordering Sir Keir to stick his head in the sand.When it was reported that Boris Johnson’s wife Carrie was interfering in his government she was branded Carrie Antoinette and Princess Nut Nut. But now we’re all apparently being expected to stand back and admire the way Lady Victoria is dictating who Britain’s Prime Minister is.Over the weekend I spoke to another minister who again told me that deep down Keir Starmer does accept his time in office is over, and is simply looking for a way to step down with honour.But at the moment it’s impossible to think of what could be less honourable than the squalid, sordid spectacle of Sir Keir again holed up behind the doors of his country retreat, with his spouse and some cut-price political Rasputin, desperately trying to think of a way to cling to the seals of office for a few more days.The truth is there will now be no dignity in Keir Starmer’s departure from office. The only issue is how much additional humiliation he intends to pile on himself, and his country, before the deed is done.