Any pretence that Sir Keir Starmer can long remain as Prime Minister vanished yesterday.
His much-vaunted reset speech was an embarrassing collection of relaunched policies and dreary platitudes, with an extra dash of Brexit-baiting designed to pep up his party's Euro-fanatics.
The pious PM said Labour under his leadership needed to 'be better' – but better at what exactly? Multiplication of zero still results in zero.
Starmer's greatest problem remains the fact that no one has ever understood what, if anything, he truly stands for.
It is this vacuum that has contributed in great part to the dilemma now faced by Labour and the country – the truly remarkable situation that a Government in power for just 97 weeks has fallen so low.
Britain is now threatened with paralysis – potentially for months – while the Government is preoccupied with mudslinging and in-fighting.
We face a multitude of deep-seated problems – economic stasis, the Channel crisis and a ramshackle military, to name but three – all of which were created or aggravated by this Government.
And yet, in a shameful betrayal of the British people, a narcissistic Labour Party plans to put everything else on hold pending its own internecine struggles.
Any pretence that Sir Keir Starmer can long remain as Prime Minister vanished on Monday (pictured on Monday)
This would mean a 'Government of the Walking Dead' until September under an arbitrary timetable set out by backbencher Catherine West as she seeks to force a leadership election.
In reality, a new party leader may not be declared until the run-up to the Labour Party conference at the end of September. That is far too long to leave Britain in purgatory. Senior ministers urging Starmer to bow out and others calling for a swift process are right to recognise the danger of lengthy delay.
And yet the belief, growing within large sections of Labour, that Andy Burnham is some kind of Northern messiah is laughable.
His performance as a Cabinet minister under Gordon Brown was lacklustre at best and he has already failed in two leadership bids in 2010 and 2015.
Since then, he has railed against the very systems that hold sway over any government's ability to succeed, particularly his remarks that Britain is 'in hock to the bond markets'.
The Manchester mayor's main attraction to Labour MPs is presumably the vain hope that he can save their seats, especially in the Red Wall, as they suffer a pincer movement from Reform and the Greens.
The calibre of all Starmer's potential successors is far from inspiring and they share a common problem: none is committed to the main policy pledges under which Labour came to power in 2024.
When the previous government was afflicted by similar division within its ranks, Labour consistently called for an immediate General Election. Shouldn't they now apply the same rules to themselves?
If Labour cynically insists on anointing the next prime minister rather than allowing voters to decide, it would be an affront to democracy.
The chances are that whoever replaces Starmer will be equally bad – probably worse.
But this lame-duck leader – who once vowed to voters that he would 'stop the chaos' and arrest national decline – cannot be allowed to limp on, leaving the country in a perilous state of limbo.
The British electorate deserve better than this tawdry charade.