Over the past few days UK politics has been consumed by a political crisis over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s leadership. Sparked by the resignations of Health Minister Sajid Javid and Chancellor Rishi Sunak, more than 40 MPs have since quit, putting enormous pressure on Johnson, who few expect to survive much longer.
While Australians have become accustomed to leadership spills and parliamentary chaos, it’s a slightly less common affair in the UK. But, thankfully, the British media has demonstrated it’s up the task of covering the drama moment by moment.
From rolling lists of resignations to interviewing cats and holding live pigs on TV, British news outlets are going all out to cover what could be the last days of the Johnson prime ministership.
The resignation tracker
Amid the non-stop coverage, TV news producers quickly stumbled upon a problem: with so many of Johnson’s ministers resigning in a single day, how were they to report on all of them? Enter the resignation tracker.
In the top left of the screen on Sky News, the counter ticked up every time someone resigned, and it was a smart move – it didn’t take up too much real estate but clearly communicated to audiences every departure. Over 24 hours, the number kept growing.
There were so many resignations over a 24 hour period that Sky created a resignation tracker, in the top left.Credit:Sky News
A minute-long montage of every resignation
The BBC’s flagship evening news broadcast, Newsnight, decided to ditch the regular credits at the end of its program and instead spend a full minute listing every resignation. It was matched by a truly perfect cover of the go-to soundtrack for big moments in television news: The Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony.
A word cloud of reasons
Another challenge: how to best communicate the reasons why each minister submitted their resignation to the PM. The BBC had it covered, by way of everyone’s favourite year 6 project: a word cloud. The larger the word, the more times it was mentioned. While integrity and privilege were mentioned, MPs’ ideas of “government” and “country” seemed to play a far bigger role in their resignations.
Resignation letters, TL;DR.Credit:BBC
How many bacon puns can Piers Morgan make in 30 seconds?
Piers Morgan may have a global audience, but his focus has been on one man. Holding a real-life pig in his hands, Morgan argued that the “greased piglet of politics has slipped and squirmed through almost three disastrous years of disorder.” While, we emphasise, holding a real-life pig.
Live coverage of the locked-out cat
The BBC prides itself on providing “up-to-the-minute” coverage of major news, and they certainly did on Wednesday in London. Number 10’s poor resident feline, Larry the Cat, was locked out of the front door, and the waiting press pack wasted no time in asking the notoriously violent cat for an inside scoop.
Waiting for BoJo
TalkTV is normally known for its less-than-mainstream talking points. But there was no talking during its five-hour live stream of a single shot of the prime minister’s residence, waiting for Johnson to come out and address the media. He hasn’t – yet.
It doesn’t always go right
The number one rule of live television: be prepared for anything. Amid the chaos earlier in the day, BBC News accidentally switched to journalist Tim Willcox on his phone and with his feet up in the studio.
This BBC News presenter was caught off guard with his feet up when the news channel inadvertently cut to the studio.Credit:BBC
With the crisis continuing into the end of the week, we’re expecting more award-winning coverage of the most significant challenge to Johnson’s leadership yet.
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
Most Viewed in Culture
From our partners
Source: Read Full Article