Nicky Morgan has revealed how Theresa May struggled to sack her face to face when she lost her job as Education Secretary in the July reshuffle.
Ms May cut loose a whole host of Cameron-supporting colleagues when she formed her Cabinet at the start of the summer, loosing nine ministers in one of the most brutal reshuffles in recent political history.
Speaking on ITV's Peston on Sunday, Ms Morgan said she was called to the Prime Minister's office on 14 July and expected the worst.
But while she "knew it was coming", she says the new Prime Minister struggled to come up with the words to dismiss her.
"I wasn't offered anything," she said. "I had to help her utter the phrase - so you'd like to 'let me go'?"
She added that the departing ministers were allowed to come and go by the back entrance, sparing them the indignity of walking out past the amassed journalists outside Number 10.
Ms Morgan confirmed it was done face to face, and said: "But at least it was done swiftly."
Since leaving the Cabinet, Ms Morgan has wasted no time in letting her opinions about Ms May's performance be known.
After it was revealed that one of Ms May's first major policies would be to extend the UK's grammar school system, the former Education Secretary took to social media to complain.
She wrote on Facebook: “I believe that an increase in pupil segregation on the basis of academic selection would be at best a distraction from crucial reforms to raise standards and narrow the attainment gap and at worse risk actively undermining six years of progressive education reform.
“The evidence is now incontrovertibly clear that a rigorous academic education does not need to be the preserve of the few.”
Ms May gave her worst performance so far at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, trying to defend the policy against a barrage of attacks from Jeremy Corbyn.
And Ms Morgan repeated on Peston she felt the grammar schools debate was a "distraction" from areas of the country where "schooling is not good enough".
