The Republican party is in meltdown again – but this time the impact could be felt in Ukraine

The story of Kevin McCarthy is the parable of the appeaser; the man who keeps feeding morsels to the crocodile hoping it will eat sufficiently well that it won’t gobble him up in its deadly jaws, but – snap – eventually it does.

And with one sickening crunch on Tuesday afternoon the teeth of the ultra-Maga Republicans in the House of Representatives sunk into McCarthy – and he was done; well and truly chewed up and spat out by the people he’d spent nine months bowing down to, accommodating, and trying to please.

Unlike the UK system where the speaker is essentially a kind of referee – the neutral umpire upholding the Commons’ rules – it is more instructive to think of the speaker of the House of Representatives as akin to our prime minister. You are responsible for deciding what legislation to introduce, directing what the House committees investigate – and just like the PM, the speaker is chosen by the party that holds a majority. And after the 2022 midterms that was the Republicans (with the squeakiest of majorities). McCarthy’s long-cherished dream was within sight.