Seven Labour MPs stomping off on Monday. One more on Tuesday. Three Tories gone yesterday. And, we are promised, more to come.
All this with a Prime Minister isolated and a Leader of the Opposition in denial.
To top it all, the future of Britain’s two-party democratic system hangs in the balance.
As the late, great cricketing authority EW Swanton was wont to deadpan when reflecting on a particularly exciting Test match: It has been an absorbing few days here in Westminster.
Change of scene: The Independent Group settle into their new seats in the Commons today
Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston, Heidi Allen. Not quite Conservative giants in the mould of Churchill, Thatcher and Peel.
Considering the recent behaviour of the latter two of this Europhile coven, you could have been prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act 1968 to have called them Tories.
Now, after another day of defections, all three belong to The Independent Group, the hastily constructed shelter for the politically homeless.
They had performed the traditional – some might say unnecessarily incendiary – act of crossing the chamber floor yesterday morning prior to an oxygen-starved Prime Minister’s questions.
Snapped by Liverpool Wavertree MP Luciana Berger, all seven former Labour MPs who resigned on Monday gathered shoulder-to-shoulder for a selfie
Their new colleagues sat waiting for them, ready and regimented as the Trumpton fire brigade: Berger. Shuker. Umunna. Coffey. Smith. Leslie. Ryan. Gapes.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) gave them a round of applause.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool Wavertree) and Ms Allen and stroked and mewed each other like playful tabby cats. What a cosy scene.
