Downing Street was a scene of farce, inside and out. Inside No 10, the Cabinet was informed by Sir Keir Starmer that it could not discuss the one thing gripping City markets and the country at large: his own dicky future. Outside, the tricoteuses of television craned for angles and screamed questions at ministers. The frenzy! The noise! The ratings!

May sunshine lit the cul-de-sac’s blueish brickwork. Chaffinch song drifted from a whitebeam tree. Then the breeze was mobbed by rook-like squawks from rolling-news network aces filling airtime during Sir Keir’s Cabinet showdown.

At 10.35am ministers started scuttling out of the shiny black door. The hour-long meeting was over. It was as if someone had poured vinegar on an anthill. Out they came, busy-busy, some scowling, others with plastic smiles.

Tubby Lord Hermer actually flew across the doorstep, red tie bouncing over his tummy as he fled the inquisitive media.

First of the ants was Steve Reed, secretary of state for communities, a Starmer loyalist. He scampered to the nearest TV camera to vent insistence that the PM would continue in post, to the greater glory of an admiring nation.

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband was more circumspect. He blanked the microphones. ‘Mr Miliband, Mr Miliband, should the Prime Minister resign?’ bellowed the TV crews.

A bloke from GB News was particularly noisy. Mr Miliband, who sticks out his bottom as he walks, pranced past in studied silence. Worthy of the dressage at Badminton.

Wes Streeting took a while to emerge. Apparently Sir Keir was refusing to talk to him. Rude! As a silent Streeting steamed away down the street, the GB News bloke roared: ‘Do you want the job? Are you measurin’ the curtains?’

Further questions were blasted at Peter Kyle, Business Secretary. Slim-hipped Pedro can never resist a soundbite. Oh, go on then, just the one. You are awful, but I like you. He disclosed that Sir Keir was ‘showing really steadfast leadership’.

More ants: the Treasury’s saturnine James Murray, clasping country-undertaker hands; party chairman Anna Turley, giving a thumbs-up as she hurried away, as if in need of a sick bowl; science secretary Liz Kendall, silken blouse unbuttoned to just north of her navel. What a meeting it must have been. No wonder Ed Mil was speechless. Hilary Benn, Northern Ireland Secretary, hobbled out and off, clippity-clop. He has a heavy tread. No one bothered shouting. Poor Hilary. Too boring to ask for a comment.

When Mr Murray appeared, Sky News’s Beth Rigby, that most souffle-subtle of broadcasters, lunged forward to take a bite out of him. Beth was entangled with her boom mike, itself attached to a sound unit. Twang. As can happen with goats, she reached the end of her leash’s limit. ‘I’m tevvered, I’m tevvered,’ cried poor Beth.

Into the chaos shimmered the cocktail-party presence of Lady Chapman, a minister from the Lords, in sleeveless dress and goose pimples. She thought Sir Keir was simply marvellous.

While this mad pavane was being danced, critics of Sir Keir continued to commit career suicide (or not) by posting social-media demands that he resign. Sam Carling, 23, MP for North West Cambridgeshire, signed his ultimatum with a hand so childish, you wonder if he has yet to receive his primary-school pen licence. Someone called Miatta Fahnbulleh quit as minister for paperclips. Reporters dived for Google. And Jess Phillips flounced out of the Home Office. What a bonus. She was cross with Sir Keir for not having more arguments with her.

Not all backbenchers were crestfallen by such news. Edgbaston’s Preet Gill, long baffled by her lack of promotion, declared her availability for ministerial office. ‘If you’re not up to delivering, then make space for those of us who are,’ she told the departing rebels.

Today the King will arrive at Parliament to say ‘my government will...’ do this and that. At the end of which he should, for the sake of royal accuracy, add ‘maybe’.