What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Let me tell you just how bad it’s getting for Theresa May.

I was talking to a Labour staffer this week and the PM is becoming a bit of a hero – in Opposition circles.

“It’s nice,” they said, “to have her there and just watch it all fall apart.”

It must be great, I speculated, to think she could go at any second.

The reply: “Are you kidding? We want her to stay. She’s a total lame duck, she’s powerless to stop them tearing themselves apart.

“Everything she touches is a disaster. She’s isolated, there’s blood in the ­water, even the Americans think

she’s useless.”

This conversation took place before Donald Trump arrived for the full red-carpet treatment.

(Image: WPA Pool)

Trump’s response? To blame Mrs May for the struggles of Brexit and look around for where his friend is. Boris, that is. Talk about ungrateful.

Mrs May’s authority has gradually slipped away since she took over in the summer of 2016.

Then she set her stall out in a speech on the steps of Downing Street.

“We were pretty worried then,” said my Labour friend. “It was like she was going after our ground. You could see how she’d play in the country.”

But nothing emerged except a strange inertia as her ­policies just melted away.

A few months later came the most spectacular ­implosion of all – her call for a General Election.

Mrs May believed she could secure a bigger ­majority. It didn’t ­happen and her government fell apart. There were many who believed she might quit after that, but she didn’t.

Next came the embarrassment of the party conference, where a bloke from the crowd passed her a P45.

Still she stayed. But there were more serious rumblings in the party. The last few months have seen her slowly strangled by the Brexit negotiations.

No one is convinced she can bring back a deal that either Remainers or Brexiteers will be happy with. Her allies have gone, her party split, her own Cabinet plots against her.

So there is an endgame coming. And the only question is when.

For the sensible Tories there is no rush. Let her continue, take the flak for Brexit, then dump her when the time is right.

But the rogue element, as always, is Boris Johnson (pictured left).

After quitting last week he has vanished. No one is quite sure what he is up to. But he’s up to something. Maybe for the autumn.

Colleagues of his tell me he sees himself as a cross between Winston Churchill and King Arthur.

When the country needs him most he will ride to the rescue – the saviour, the man of the hour, the man with all the answers.

But then, as another senior Labour source put it to me: “If Boris is the answer, what the hell was the question?”