"No, you hold it."
There was a time – not even that long ago – when a dodgy speeding ticket or a few rude words uttered by an MP in the direction of policeman would fuel political headlines for weeks on end.
For better or worse (but almost certainly worse), those days are over. It’s 2019, and the ante has been upped significantly.
This past week has been no exception, as Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn have vied with each other to see who could cram the most calamities into seven days.
SUNDAY
It seems so long ago now, but just last weekend Jeremy Corbyn was having an absolute nightmare.
As Labour’s annual conference got underway, the party appeared to be in the midst of a meltdown.
On Saturday, Corbyn was forced to step in to block an extraordinary attempt by Jon Lansman and the grassroots Labour group Momentum to abolish Tom Watson’s role as deputy leader.
Then, Andrew Fisher, one of Corbyn’s closest aides, announced his resignation and ominously warned that Labour would not win a general election.
Fisher, head of policy and the author of the party’s last manifesto, denounced the team for their “lack of professionalism, competence and human decency” – savage words indeed.
Given the divisions within the party over Brexit and other policy issues, it seemed like Labour’s chaotic conference could dominate headlines all week...
MONDAY
And Monday delivered – ahead of a crucial vote on Labour’s Brexit position, the trade unions were warning of “hell to pay”, senior MPs were demanding that Corbyn take a side and London Mayor Sadiq Khan insisted that Labour delegates refuse to support “any compromise on Brexit”.
So obviously the decision was to not make a decision at all, and Labour is now set to enter the next general election without a clear commitment to remain in the EU in a Brexit referendum.
Corbyn’s opponents were quick to pounce on the vote as evidence that he is a “Brexiteer at heart”, and his own supporters even accused him of “undermining his own people”.
“Embarrassed”, “angry” and “depressed” Labour members held a secret meeting in which they hit out at the leader’s “bunker mentality” and warned the party was “haemorrhaging” votes to the Liberal Democrats and Greens by staying neutral on Brexit.
So it wasn’t going well for Corbyn by any stretch of the imagination.
But events elsewhere were threatening to overshadow things, a double-edged sword that meant the spotlight would no longer be on the Labour leader, but also that every reporter in the country was bailing on his conference.
So where was that spotlight headed? Why, over to 10 Downing Street, naturally.
Boris Johnson hasn’t really had a good week since becoming PM, but a storm was brewing that was about to hit him like an entire EU fishing quota dropped from a great height.
On Monday, around the same time Corbyn was being shouted at by most of his party, an investigation was launched into the circumstances in which a “close friend” of the PM was awarded more than £100,000 in public money.
Jennifer Arcuri, an American former model turned tech entrepreneur, was given privileged access to three foreign trade missions, led by the now-prime minister, after her company won a grant earlier this year intended for “English-based” businesses.
Johnson had refused to clarify their relationship a number of times but was eventually forced to address the issue on Monday when he said “everything was done with complete propriety”.
For the latest on this story, check it out here, because it’s nearly Tuesday and we have even bigger things to deal with...
TUESDAY
On Tuesday, a 74-year-old woman called Brenda became an absolute political sensation. No, not that one, Lady Hale, the president of the Supreme Court.
Wearing a rather fabulous spider brooch and with quintessential British restraint, she informed the nation that the PM had been a very naughty boy when he suspended parliament. So bad in fact, he had been unlawful.
If this sounds bad, it’s because it really is. Lady Hale said the case was a “one-off”, having come about “in circumstances which have never arisen before and are unlikely to ever arise again” – thereby raising the hopes of exhausted political reporters across the country.
The Supreme Court’s verdict led to immediate calls for Johnson’s resignation, and Speaker John Bercow announced that parliament would be recalled on Wednesday morning so MPs could get back to shouting at one another again and telling Johnson how very naughty he’d been.
Which is, all in all, about as bad a position as the leader of a western nation can be in whilst still just about clinging to their job.
Except it isn’t. Proving once again that the days of headlines being made by a politician eating a bacon sandwich and making a weird face are well and truly over, across the Atlantic the Americans were readying themselves for a “hold my beer” moment of epic proportions.
On Tuesday evening, Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the US Democratic opposition, announced the launching of a formal impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump’s actions as president.
And what did he allegedly do (this time)? Abuse his presidential powers by asking a foreign government – Ukraine – to undermine Democratic foe Joe Biden in order to help his own 2020 re-election campaign.
Which, ironically, is an almost identical charge to the one Robert Mueller spent so long investigating in relation to Russia and Hillary Clinton and the 2016 election.
So did he do it? Trump of course denied it and promised to release details of the phone call with Ukraine’s president that started the whole controversy.
Which brings us to...
WEDNESDAY
A summary of the call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy revealed the US president repeatedly prodded Ukraine’s new leader to work with Rudy Giuliani and the US attorney general to investigate Democratic political rival Joe Biden.
Which is pretty much what he was being accused of doing, yet Trump responded by claiming the call was totally innocent whilst throwing a massive tantrum.
Speaking of which, over in the UK it was all kicking off in the Commons, as Johnson tried to reclaim the title of Politician Having the Worst Time This Week.
Actually, make that Politician Being Just Plain Awful.
A fractious Brexit debate reached its nadir as the prime minister dismissed requests from Labour MP Paula Sherriff to stop using the language of “surrender” and “betrayal” because it is reflected in the daily death threats and abuse she receives.
He also responded to the pleas of friends of murdered MP Jo Cox to tone down his language by calling their concerns “humbug” and suggesting that the best way to “honour” Cox’s memory would be “to get Brexit done”.
Cox’s friend Rachel Reeves described the debate as a “horrendous spectacle” and accused Johnson of using “dangerous” rhetoric to, which “sows division and worse”.
THURSDAY
The outrage over Johnson’s Commons performance spilled over into Thursday, and even his sister Rachel criticised his behaviour, saying it was “not helpful” to blame parliament for his Brexit difficulties, and claiming that he used the Commons despatch box as a “bully pulpit”.
Cox’s widower also stepped into the fray, saying he “felt a bit sick at Jo’s name being used in this way”.
Over in the US, Trump was in ALL CAPS mode, as the whistleblower complaint that sparked the Ukraine allegations was made public.
Unfortunately for the president, what the complaint seems to have made perfectly clear was that his own White House was immediately aware of how damaging the call was and went to great lengths to try and hide it.
FRIDAY
At this point it’s worth recapping where our three antagonists stand. And like all good competitions, there are no losers here – each man can honestly claim to have had a monumentally rubbish week, albeit for very different reasons.
Jeremy Corbyn
Corbyn tried really, really hard to take the crown, shouting at reporters, only barely stopping an internal coup to topple Tom Watson and heading an annual conference that essentially involved the most senior Labour politicians telling him not to do something that went ahead anyway.
His effort was in fact aided by Trump and Johnson, whose actions completely overshadowed the policy proposals Labour announced, which were supposed to make headlines.
Boris Johnson
It was a top effort from the PM – not only did he act unlawfully, but he also managed to sully the memory of a murdered MP.
And when your own family are slagging you off in public, you know you’re having a real shocker.
LATEST: Late on Friday evening it was announced the PM had been referred to the police complaints body for England and Wales to assess whether he should face a criminal investigation over his links with Arcur – what a way to end the week.
Donald Trump
Trump has weathered scandal after scandal, but this week felt different. Not only because impeachment proceedings are now officially underway, but also because there’s evidence his own administration was well aware of just how bad it could be.
So who had the worst week?
Well, dear reader, these are our elected officials. So the only truly worthy winners of this dubious title are you and I.