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Just when you thought yellow bellied Sir Keir Starmer couldn't sink much lower he does just that.

First the cornered PM strong-armed Labour MPs into voting to reject a motion calling for him to face a parliamentary inquiry into whether he misled the Commons over Peter Mandelson's appointment as our top diplomat.

And now it's being claimed he has privately offered Angela Rayner a return to the Cabinet in what has been widely interpreted as an attempt to head off a leadership coup. For Starmer there is no shame.

With the pitiful PM on the ropes over the Mandelson saga, and a totting up process of rank incompetence, heads have rolled..except his.

So desperate is he to save his own skin he has extended an olive branch to his former deputy and likely successor ahead of what will almost certainly be wipeout for Labour at the May 7 local elections.

It is inevitable he will face a leadership challenge after the bloodbath. It is inconceivable he will stay on. He is deeply unpopular, within his own party and across the country, so this move is his trademark - hopelessness, anguish, and blind panic.

Sir Keir is already thought to be plotting a reshuffle for the aftermath of the polls and in a frantic bid to cling to power bringing Ms Rayner back in from the cold is probably his last, albeit remote, chance of clinging on to his increasingly perilous position as PM.

Ms Rayner was forced to quit after breaching the ministerial code over questions about the amount of stamp duty paid on a home in well-heeled Hove.

But instead of distancing himself from someone who clearly covets his job, and is clearly on manoeuvres, the beleaguered PM said it's only a matter of time before she is back in the big tent. Yes, but not alongside him.

Sir Keir described her as the "best example ever in the UK of social mobility" - a reference to her stratospheric climb from "challenging childhood" to his deputy.

He said: "I'm friends with Angie and I like Angie a lot."

Scorned Ms Rayner was forced to resign in September before accepting a £17,000 severance package, despite being a vocal critic of such payments to ministers who breached the code. An HMRC investigation into her tax affairs remains ongoing.

There are suggestions Ms Rayner purchased her seaside property in East Sussex, in order to bag a winnable seat because her constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne will likely be snatched by Reform at the next election.

And from there? She has always had her eyes fixed on Downing Street which would be a boon to the unions with whom she is betrothed. But it would spell disaster for the rest of us.

Labour passed her Trade Union charter, which massively increased burdens on businesses, handing more power to the unions and drowning firms in red tape and regulation.

The spiteful hard-left radical is emboldened and desperate to take this country back to the 1970s.

She has been itching to see off Starmer and exact revenge. If anyone is delighted by the grubby fallout over Mandelson's spectacular, if not wholly unexpected, downfall it is her.

Ms Rayner backed the beleaguered PM by voting against the probe thereby helping to save his skin. For now.

But she knows revenge is a dish best served cold.

Would she accept a return? Not a chance. Why would she when No 10 is in perpetual crisis and Starmer is a dead man walking.

She will reject his overtures and launch a leadership challenge after the local elections. Her opponents are likely to be Andy Burnham, Wes Streeting and Ed Miliband. Hardly the high water mark of political excellence.

And she will probably enjoy having the last laugh.

Whatever way you look at it, things are about to get a whole lot worse.