Boris Johnson jetted back from an eight-day foreign jaunt on Thursday evening to be confronted with the news of Chris Pincher’s humiliation the night before.
Last night, the Deputy Chief Whip’s alleged groping - and the ensuing and avoidable Downing Street cover-up - was set to seal the Prime Minister’s fate.
No10 was pleased with the success of last month’s diplomatic tour of Rwanda, Bavaria and Madrid.
The Prime Minister had spent more than a week abroad strutting the world stage, far from the madding crowd of the revolting Tories.
But moments after landing at Stansted Airport on Thursday evening, a phone call set in train a series of events which plunged the PM’s premiership into its greatest jeopardy.
After his Airbus A321 G-GBNI touched down at the Essex airfield, Johnson was told of events at the Carlton Club in Westminster less than 24 hours earlier which began the same time as he was pictured in contemplation staring at a painting at the Prado Gallery in Madrid on Wednesday night.
Johnson, as is so often the way, baulked at giving the media what they wanted in terms of kicking “A*** Pincher” of the party.
Pincher had already voluntarily quit as Deputy Chief Whip and Johnson was damned if he was going to withdraw the Tory whip as well - potentially triggering another by-election.
On Friday, a shameful session of the daily lobby questions with the PM’s spokesman - in this case, the deputy official spokesman - unfolded where a hapless civil servant - poorly briefed on the most sympathetic reading, directly lied to by his seniors on the other analysis - told journalists Johnson was “not aware of any specific allegations” against Pincher when he appointed Deputy Chief Whip in February.
It soon became clear this simply was not true.
The position shifted when it later became obvious Johnson had indeed been aware of specific allegations; in fact, he had known full well what Pincher had been accused of and decided it was not enough to stop him being appointed Deputy Chief Whip.
Ambushed by TV and radio presenters on Friday, Welsh Secretary Simon Hart defied the No10 broadcast line.
By Sunday, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey was dispatched to defend the indefensible in a series of excruciating interviews.
Then on Monday, junior minister Will Quince - an MP only elected in 2015 who was at pains to separate what he personally felt from what he had been told - became the latest victim to be sent to studios to humiliate himself by parroting the party line; another good man thrown to the broadcast wolves by unforgiving, uncaring No10 aides.
Meanwhile, senior ministers at yesterday morning’s Cabinet completely ignored the huge shadow looming over the meeting.
Though, look at the footage from the 9am meeting and Chancellor Rishi Sunak deliberately and physically distances himself from the PM.
However, no-one spoke up and they were treated to the bizarre spectacle of the PM carrying on as normal.
Unusually - and in what in hindsight demonstrates the dawning realisation in No10 of the renewed plot to topple the PM - Johnson made his way to the tea rooms in Parliament after the meeting.
Maybe he or his aides “read the room” and thought they needed to seduce backbench MPs.
In truth, it was far too late.
Normally, Johnson would only ever venture into the tea rooms after PMQs on a Wednesday lunchtime in an effort to rally the troops.
He has never enjoyed the encounter, believing a “world king” should not need to debase themselves by courting subjects.
He lured loyalists into his Commons office for drinks, desperate to guarantee their support.
But the fact that he was there yesterday shows how, finally and belatedly, No10 realised the chess pieces were moving against him.
Clearly, it was too late.
For all the PM could demonstrate unity at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Rwanda, the G7 in Bavaria and NATO in Madrid, it was absolutely obvious to those travellinng with him that plotting against him back in the UK was in full swing.
While Johnson may have relished swimming in the lake on the banks of the German schloss, bantering with Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, and suggesting G7 leaders strip naked to prove their manliness to Vladimir Putin, machinations hundreds of miles away were not working in Johnson’s favour.
Abroad, Downing Street shrugged off these questions as “Westminster bubble” queries; they were anything but.
Last night, seconds after the PM’s TV clip where he tried to justify his response to the original Pincher allegations and appointing him Deputy Chief Whip, Health Secretary Sajid Javid and the Chancellor Rishi Sunak fell on their swords.
Today, the PM’s political life hangs in the balance.
He has no-one to blame but himself.
