For months Brexit protesters wielding high-powered speakers have blasted an annoying “Bye, bye Boris!” anthem outside Parliament and around Westminster.
At 12.30pm, as Boris Johnson emerged from 10 Downing Street’s famous black door and strode the few feet to a wooden lectern, the music again blared out across Whitehall, initially drowning out the Prime Minister’s resignation speech.
Chaotic, shambolic and absolutely frustrating - perfectly encapsulating Johnson’s two-year and 348-day reign, which now has just weeks to run as the Tories prepare for yet another leadership race.
The PM cut a lonely figure at the lectern as he finally accepted the inevitable.
But 20 yards to his right stood civil servants, some members of his inner circle including Director of Communications Guto Harri, and, in a poignant demonstration of how there is more to life than politics, Johnson’s wife Carrie, clutching their nine-month-old daughter Romy to her chest in a papoose, standing next to that most slavishly loyal of Cabinet ministers, Nadine Dorries.
Other ministers in the group included Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nigel Adams and Chief Whip Chris Heaton-Harris.
Twenty yards to Johnson’s left, a glum band of devoted MPs - Brexiteer backbenchers such as Andrea Jenkyns, Peter Bone, Christopher Chope, Daniel Kawczynski and Richard Drax - who kept the faith to the end assembled to mourn their idol’s exit.
More than a thousand people, many holding camera phones, gathered at the gates of Downing Street for the historic moment - a combination of anti-Tory protesters, anti-Brexit activists and bemused tourists stumbling across the latest gripping instalment of British political soap opera.
Some chanted: “Out! Out! Out!” as the PM, drained of authority and now fighting to be heard, battled to raise his voice above the din.
Extra police were drafted onto Whitehall while a helicopter clattered overhead, relaying live pictures to the TV audience at home glued to their screens as this most narcissistic of leaders announced his imminent departure.
Journalists from across the world crammed behind steel crash barriers on the pavement opposite No10, offering viewers the news in languages including English, Spanish, French and Arabic - a reminder of how who leads the UK still matters on the global stage.
Above No10, the Ukraine flag fluttered in the gentle breeze against overcast skies, with the Union Flag hoist above No11.
Newly-installed Education Secretary James Cleverly was spotted arriving at the back door with a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
Staff from the Foreign Office pressed their faces against the iron gates separating the FCO from Downing Street, keen to be present at the stunning downfall of their former boss.
While they waited for Johnson to address the nation, news dropped of Cabinet appointments - prompting incredulity that the PM was still promoting MPs even as his resignation speech was rolling off the printer.
Surely he would not launch another humiliating attempt to cling on?
But when the lectern was carried into the middle of the street, the confirmation the country needed that the PM was on his way out had arrived.
Unlike his most recent predecessors Theresa May and David Cameron, both of whom became emotional as they announced their departures in 2019 and 2016 respectively, there was no hint that Johnson would crack.
Though there was an indication of how this classics scholar, who studied the Fates and dreamt of being “world king”, resents being brought down by those he believes owe him for their jobs.
“I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world. But them’s the breaks,” he confided during his seven-minute monologue.
While he obviously still blames everyone else rather than himself for the messes which engineered his exit, there was perhaps a note of regret when he said ruefully: “Being Prime Minister is an education in itself.”
For him, it must be a personal shame that he simply refused to learn.
