At the beginning of the week, the inside story of the Gove-Johnson was catalogued by BBC journalist Mark Mardell in a handy cut-out-and-keep list for budding dramatists. It dripped with blood, worthy of anything by Shakespeare.
Thereafter, politics moved from its first definition - 'activities associated with the governance of a country' - to its second: 'activities aimed at improving one's status or increasing power'. The transition was unseemly, littered with personal attacks and posturing.
Tory MPs were conducting their own savage campaign to find a pair of candidates to suggest to their membership. By the end of the week, Michael Heseltine had 'disembowelled' Michael Gove, to quote one journalist, putting a final stake through his chances in the leadership election. The last of the big three Brexit leaders was gone. Tories never value disloyalty.
Fox and Crabb had gone as well. We were left with an all-female shortlist of Theresa May and Andrea Leadsom (the last leading Brexiteer still standing?) which would be put to the ca 150,000 party faithful for them to choose our next Prime Minister.
At the other end of the corridor, Labour continued its wranglings with offers and counter-offers of mediation against a ominous backdrop of 'I shall not be moved' from Jeremy Corbyn. Angela Eagle collected sufficient support to launch a leadership challenge which will no doubt dominate the Labour news next week.
In the real world, the economy continued to stumble along, with the pound sinking ever lower. Journalists flew to their blogs and word-processors to churn out observations on the result. John Lichfield suggested that Britain was having a nervous breakdown and highlighted, yet again, Boris Johnson's role in creating the myth of Brussels bureaucrats.
He memorably reminded us that the Queen of Hearts' insistence that we should have 'sentence first - verdict afterwards'. How apt a description of what had happened with the referendum.
A new hero emerged at the European parliament in the person of Guy Verhofstadt, a former Prime Minister of Belgium. He came to prominence when he responded to Nigel Farage's appalling leaving speech by saying that he was looking forward to saving money in the EU budget when Farage left: his salary. He made two speeches - on 28 June and 5 July - to the Parliament, both articulate and great theatre.
As well as decrying the chaos in the Brexit camp in the way that only a critical friend can do, he challenged the EU to see the consequences of the vote as an earthquake which needed a response and not something that could be brushed aside with a 'business as usual' attitude. He must have been looking over his shoulder at some of the other countries, with active right wing parties.
The face of Donald Tusk as Verhofstadt laid into him for his inertia was a joy. (Did I spot one of valiant UKIP MEPs sitting with her back to Verhofstadt as he spoke?). Verhofstadt would agree with John Lichfield that the nervous breakdown was in full swing.
Our eyes were taken off the European question mid week when the Chilcot report was published. But our gaze swiftly returned to the main topic when Sam Coats Times drew attention to the parallels in a tweet: 'Chilcot begs government never again to embark on huge risky leaps of faith based on dodgy evidence and without solid planning.'
Dodgy evidence? A sexed-up dodgy dossier? That seems a generously mild summary of what the Leave campaign offered.
Special interest groups went into over-drive attacking Tony Blair with almost no realisation of the irony that they were accusing him of doing what the 'British people' had just done: decision first - analysis afterwards. The Queen of Hearts' dictum.
In discussions, the same questions came up time and again:
- How could we have been so stupid to have voted for something so ill-defined (and seemingly suicidal when looked at in detail)?
- How are we going to square the circle and actually implement the 'wish of the people'?
No answers were yet forthcoming but we could all rest assured that Oliver Letwin, whose contempt for the Civil Service is well-known, was gathering about him 'the brightest and the best' of them to work out how to achieve the second. It will take quite a team.
Here in Cornwall, the search went on for anyone who actually voted Leave and understood just how much money the county had been receiving from the EU each year: money that was highly unlikely to be forthcoming from a UK government. The total so far is 1.
