Theresa May took to the stage at the end of Tory party conference needing to give the speech of her political career.
With Boris breathing down her neck for the top job she had to quash her leadership rivals as well as reinvigorate a badly-weakened party.
Instead, she choked so badly that at one point it appeared the on-manoeuvres foreign secretary was being urged by a cabinet colleague to take the stage to save her.
The under-pressure premier started off looking relaxed and talking about something called the British Dream, which has apparently inspired generations of Britons.
This reverie was rudely interrupted by a man flourishing a P45 in her face. In a prescient move, she accepted it.
Comedian Simon Brodkin, also known as Lee Nelson, handed her the fake note listing the reason for termination as “neither strong nor stable”.
Unusually for the Maybot, she managed to quip back that the only person she’d like to hand a P45 to was Jeremy Corbyn.
Things looked like they could be back on track, until the PM was overtaken by a coughing fit so severe it threatened to force her to abandon her speech altogether.
It was painful to watch.
The Chancellor handed her a cough sweet as desperate delegates stood and cheered to try and cover up how disastrously wrong the speech was going.
As her cabinet sat grim-faced on the front row and wished for the end to come, even the letters on the set behind her gave up the will to live and started leaping from the wall.
Mrs May staggered to the finish line before fleeing the hall with tears in her eyes, a hat trick of catastrophe completed and her position as hostage leader firmly cemented.
