Boris Johnson was confronted with his own words about leaders who fail to resign as his Government collapsed around him.
The shameless Prime Minister tried to continue with business as usual in an appearance at the Commons Liaison Committee but his efforts were derailed by a flurry of Tory resignations.
In a bizarre session, Mr Johnson talked about fertiliser and road pricing as MPs quit around him and rumours swirled that the Cabinet was ready to tell him time was up.
Tory Huw Merriman even published a letter calling for the PM to quit as he waited to ask Mr Johnson a question at the committee.
Despite the dramatic scenes, Mr Johnson said he was having a "terrific" week when pressed on how he was by Labour MP Darren Jones.
He declined to be drawn on suggestions Levelling-Up Secretary Michael Gove asked him to resign on Wednesday morning.
"I'm here to talk about what the Government is doing," Mr Johnson said. "I'm not going to give a running commentary on politic events."
Mr Jones then quoted an article that the PM wrote in the Telegraph in 2011, where he compared Gordon Brown to Libyan tyrant Colonel Gaddafi.
The-then backbencher wrote: "'When a regime has been in power too long, when it has fatally exhausted the patience of the people, and when oblivion finally beckons – I am afraid that across the world you can rely on the leaders of that regime to act solely in the interests of self-preservation, and not in the interests of the electorate.'
"Who authored that quote," asked Mr Jones.
Mr Johnson pretended he didn't know who had come up with the line, asking if it by classical writers Cicero, Plato or Aristotle.
But Mr Jones hit back, saying "this isn't funny, it's not a game".
He added: "People are struggling across the country. It's not brave for you to carry on doing this. I think, in my view, you're hurting the country.
"On a very human level you must know it's in the country's interests for you to go."
But Mr Johnson replied: "I cannot for the life of me see how it is responsible just to walk away... particularly not when you have a mandate of the kind that the one we won two or three years ago."
