Even before Phillip Schofield stood down on Saturday, most of us had our “Phil and Holly” tipping point. For me, it was PMQs, when deputy PM Oliver Dowden described opposition leader Keir Starmer and his deputy, Angela Rayner, as “the Phil and Holly of British politics”. “We all know what’s going on with her and her leader,” said Dowden, “it’s all lovey-dovey on the surface, they turn it on for the cameras, but as soon as they’re off, it’s a different story. They’re at each other’s throats.”
It was official: the nation was gripped by the escalating froideur (estrangement, darkness, conjecture) between the previously BFF-presenting team of ITV’s This Morning. Even the denizens of Westminster were agog at the pair’s rictus-grinned “Bette and Joan” mid-morning cabaret of enforced contractual proximity. So much has been going on it’s difficult to keep up. The background murk (Phillip Schofield’s brother has just been sentenced to 12 years for child sexual abuse offences). The 2022 Queen’s coffin queue-jumping furore. The speculation. Would Holly Willoughby leave? Would Schofield be ousted? What was fact and what was rumour? And how long could they go on co-presenting under such circumstances?
