PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s slow-puncture premiership was wobbling towards the scrapheap today as Labour MPs and even Cabinet members distanced themselves from his crumbling administration.

The Prime Minister insisted that he would carry on amid collapsing confidence, and continued to claim that he had been right to sack Foreign Office supremo Sir Olly Robbins for failing to stop him appointing Lord Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US, something he admitted he should not have done anyway.

Sir Keir also admitted that Downing Street had schemed to appoint the subsequently disgraced Labour spin doctor Lord Matthew Doyle to a top diplomatic post.

“Matthew Doyle worked for many years in public service for me as prime minister and other ministers,” he told MPs.

“When people leave roles in any organisation, there are often conversations about other roles they want to apply for, but nothing came of this.”

Downing Street refused to explain why, as Sir Olly has alleged, they tried to keep the moves to parachute Lord Doyle into ambassadorial office secret from then-foreign secretary David Lammy.

Lord Doyle has since been suspended from the Labour Party over his links with Sean Morton, a former Labour councillor in Moray, who was convicted of child sex offences.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey called for a probe into the Doyle scandal, saying: “For No 10 to ask the Foreign Office to find a plum diplomatic job for another Labour crony who was friends with a convicted sex offender — and to instruct that to be kept secret from the foreign secretary — is completely shocking.

“On top of his catastrophic lack of judgment, Keir Starmer’s failure to answer simple questions about his own role just isn’t good enough.

“The government needs to launch an inquiry by the Cabinet secretary to find out who was doing this lobbying, why, and whether the Prime Minister knew about it or not.”

It is now believed that the issues which led the UK Vetting Service to recommend against Lord Mandelson’s appointment may well have been known to Sir Keir anyway from a separate due diligence document produced on the shamed New Labour hotshot, focusing on his links to Russian and Chinese interests.

There is no respite in sight for Sir Keir since it was confirmed that his sacked chief of staff and all-round svengali Morgan McSweeney is to give evidence to MPs next week on his part in the scandal, widely believed to be a leading one.

This is now driving Labour MPs, facing disastrous results in the elections for the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd and many English local authorities on May 7, to distraction.

A YouGov poll predicted the party is facing its worst result in its London heartland for 50 years, with the Greens making big gains.

Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash, associated with the nativist Blue Labour faction, publicly called on the Prime Minister to quit: “I’m completely fed up about it, and I think it’s got to the point now where as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, it’s not a case of if, it’s when.

“Ultimately, I don’t think anyone reasonably expects the Prime Minister to lead the party into the next election,” he told GB News.

Leading Cabinet members are also tiptoeing away from Sir Keir. The normally uber-loyal Welfare Secretary Pat McFadden declined to back the Prime Minister’s sacking of Sir Olly today, going on to disapprove of the plan to make Lord Doyle an ambassador for good measure.

Mr McFadden’s dissent followed that of Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who said he would not have appointed Lord Mandelson to Washington in the first place, and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, who attacked the manoeuvres to promote Lord Doyle as wrong.

The wider parliamentary party is also in sullen despair.

One leading left MP told the Star “he will have to fall on his sword after the elections in May” while another in the centre of the party simply said: “Everybody hates him but who can take over?”

Another former front-bencher told the Star that Sir Keir and the right wing had to own the impending electoral debacle so action before then would be premature but, if the results are as bad as anticipated, his resignation should be forced immediately thereafter.

In another blow to Labour, former Labour general secretary and senior Unite official Jennie Formby announced that she has joined the Green Party, following a number of other figures on the party’s left.

Green MP Ellie Chowns said in the Commons: “The Prime Minister appointed Mandelson in a doomed attempt to pander to Donald Trump, despite knowing about his friendship with the paedophile Epstein and his links to foreign states.

“And now he’s thrown a civil servant under the bus to save his own skin. Does the Prime Minister not realise that the best thing he can do to restore trust and integrity is to take true responsibility and resign?”

The answer of course was No but Downing Street spokesmen struggled to explain why they felt Sir Olly had to lose his job for what Sir Keir regarded as a serious misjudgement whereas the Prime Minister has conceded he made a major blunder in appointing Lord Mandelson, yet remains in post.