ITV News at 10′s opener for Wednesday’s bulletin completely pulled Liz Truss’s government apart in less than a minute in a blistering opener.
Host Tom Bradby began by explaining how it “has been a night of astonishing scenes in Westminster,” shortly after MPs were meant to vote in the Commons on a Labour motion about banning fracking in England.
As Tom described, there were “reports of jostling, manhandling, bullying and shouting, outside the Parliament lobbies” as the motion on shale gas drilling descended into “a supposed vote of confidence in the government”.
He continued: “The deputy chief whip was reported to have left the scene saying, ′I’m absolutely effing furious, I just don’t effing care anymore,′ before he resigned, along with the chief whip.
“But, we have just been told, they have officially un-resigned. The home secretary has, however, definitely gone.
“In short, it is total, absolute, abject chaos.”
And Twitter couldn’t quite believe that this had actually happened.
The Conservative government under Truss was already hanging by a thread this week, due to the economic chaos triggered by her mini-budget and subsequent U-turns over certain policies.
The markets lost faith and the value of the pound plummeted, leading the prime minister to sack her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng last Friday.
Then, former home secretary Suella Braverman resigned from her role on Wednesday, after breaching security rules – but she appeared to make a parting shot at the prime minister on her way out.
In her resignation letter, shared on Twitter, Ms Braverman wrote: “Pretending we haven’t made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can’t see we have made them and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious politics.”
Amid the mayhem, Channel 4′s Krishnan Guru-Murthy end up in a sticky conversation with Tory backbencher Steve Baker.
During an off-air moment which was recorded on the news channel’s livestream, the presenter was heard saying, “what a c***” shortly after his phone call with the MP ended.