You know those times at work when you're about to walk into a shit-storm, and there's no way to avoid it?
You're going to get bollocked, you're going to be called out on a mistake you made, you're going to get into shit - but you've just got to do it, because at the end of the day it's your job.
Well, that's how Education Secretary Nicky Morgan must have felt when she had to go on BBC Newsnight to discuss her party's recent economic wranglings.
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Since Chancellor George Osborne announced his Budget last week, the idea of the Conservative Party as a unified front has started to look increasingly dodgy.
On Friday 18 March, Iain Duncan Smith resigned as the Work and Pensions Secretary, over proposed cuts to benefits for disabled people, saying: "There has been too much emphasis on money saving exercises."
Fuck. I mean your Facebook friends who are into saving 'our NHS' have probably been repeating this sentiment since 2010, but when it comes from a Secretary of State, it's slightly more serious.
All of this has meant bad news for the Chancellor, with the Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn calling for him to resign, and members of his own party reportedly being unhappy with his budget.
Which takes us to Monday night (21 March), when BBC Newsnight ran a segment on the budget fallout, meaning someone from the government was obliged to come on and argue its benefits.
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It should probably have been George Osborne or somebody from the treasury, who know the thing inside out. But instead they sent Nicky Morgan, whose day-to-day job is looking after this country's education.
Nicky is part of the government, but she doesn't have that much say over how the government determines its overall finances. But there she was in the chair opposite Evan Davis, probably wondering why the fuck she'd be subjected to this.
Evan starts out with a couple of standard questions about the fall out from the budget. But really, he's just waiting to show her this graph, here it is:
Credit: BBC via YouTube
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The graph show stats from the Institute For Fiscal Studies, and projects how the government's cuts to welfare and lowering of tax are projected to affect British people's finances from 2015 to 2019, from the poorest to the richest.
You've got to admit it doesn't look very good, especially for a party trying to put across that 'we're all in this together.'
Here's what Evan asked: "I want you to look at a graph"
"This one's from the IFS. On the left, the incomes of the poorest and how they're going to change with tax and benefit cuts over this Parliament. On the right, the incomes of the richest.
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"And the big downward bars are the net losses in income. And what you basically see is that the poorest are losing five to eight per cent of their net income and the top people on the right, the richest, are losing almost nothing.
"What do you make of that graph?"
Credit: BBC via YouTube
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Nicky bumbles through an answer: "I think that tells one story in terms of the changes," she begins.
Before eventually admitting that she's never seen the graph before. The interview continues but she never really recovers.
It's one of those classic TV moments that makes even the viewer want to crawl into a hole. On a grander scale, it suggests the governing party is in a spot of disarray.
Now we'll just have to wait and see if their budget leaves us in the same way.
Words by James Dawson
Featured image: BBC via YouTube
Topics: david cameron