On Friday evening, Keir Starmer will head for Chequers for another crisis meeting with his dwindling band of senior loyalists.

But when he walks into the 16th-century manor house, he will be met by an unwelcome sight. A bottle of whisky and a revolver will be sitting on his desk.

Over the past 24 hours I’ve spoken to strategists from all the major campaigns in Makerfield. The polls, the canvass returns and the postal vote respondents are all sending the same message: Andy Burnham is on course for a close, but clear, victory.

At which point, the final act of Keir Starmer’s premiership will open.

There has been some confusion – a fair bit of it sown deliberately by Sir Keir’s No 10 allies – about what will transpire in the immediate aftermath of Burnham’s likely victory.

They have been spinning that he will immediately move to formally trigger a leadership contest. Possibly as early as in his election night victory speech. But that’s not the plan.

Instead, the Prime Minister will be given one final opportunity to do the decent thing – for himself and for the country – and set out a clear timetable for his departure.

In the hours after the Makerfield result, a steady stream of Labour MPs will take to the airwaves and social media to call on Starmer to step down.

But Burnham will not be among them. While he will reiterate his call for ‘change’, he will stop short of publicly demanding Sir Keir’s resignation. Instead, he is planning to hold direct discussions with Starmer and his team to see if it’s possible to negotiate an orderly transition of power, one that will see him finally stepping down around the time of Labour Party conference.

‘Andy wants to do this in a grown-up way’, one of his allies explained to me. ‘He’s going to try and talk to Keir directly over the weekend, and if that doesn’t work, his team are going to try to meet with Keir’s people on the Monday.’

The hope is that this will lead to the Prime Minister finally bowing to the inevitable. Although senior members of Starmer’s team remain conflicted over whether he will ultimately see sense.

‘We keep getting different messages’, one told me. ‘One day they’re sending the signal: “OK, Keir gets it.” Then 24 hours later it’s: “You can do one. We’re fighting on.”’

If Starmer does dig in, then there will be two more efforts made to winkle – then dynamite – him out. The first will be a series of public statements, coupled with a number of resignations, from senior members of the Cabinet. According to Ministers I’ve spoken to, approximately two-thirds of Starmer’s senior colleagues are now prepared to tell him to his face he needs to step down.

But if he continues to defy political reality, then I’m told Burnham is prepared to press the button and submit the names necessary to trigger a formal contest.

As another ally explained: ‘This can’t be allowed to drag on. Keir is going to be given the chance to go with dignity. But if he doesn’t, then we will move. We’re not going to sit around for the whole of next week twiddling our thumbs.’ Not least because they know that is precisely what Starmer’s team wants. Inside Downing Street they are mapping out what some people are calling The Steeplechase Strategy.

As one minister explained it: ‘They want to keep playing for time. So their plan is to turn Andy’s sprint up Downing Street into a steeplechase. They are going to keep trying to put new obstacles in his way that he needs to clear.

‘So the first thing you’ll see them doing on Friday is sending people out to say: “OK, Makerfield’s been won. But now the real challenge is the Manchester mayoral election. That has to be the party’s new focus.”

‘The idea is to try and delay a challenge for at least another month. And hope that if Reform can come through in Manchester, that will take the shine off and get people blaming Andy for the loss’.

Burnham’s team are well aware this is what Starmer’s ‘Bitter Enders’ are planning. And they intend to turn the Prime Minister’s argument against him.

They will contest that the proximity of the mayoral election makes it even more imperative the PM has confirmed to the people of Greater Manchester he is stepping down.

‘That’s going to be crucial to holding the mayoralty,’ one Burnham aide revealed. ‘Once Keir has announced he’s going, we can say: “OK, we listened to you, we’ve got rid of him. Now, give us one more chance to win back your trust.” But if Keir is still on the ballot, it makes it so much harder to hang on.’

Whatever happens, Starmer’s fate is sealed.

The only question now is whether he will take the honourable path himself, or leave it to his MPs and party to finally put the country out of its misery.