Prime minister Liz Truss has appeared on Laura Kuennsberg's Sunday morning show on BBC One but the underfire PM's interview got off to a rocky start that to some technical glitches.
Truss was already feeling the pressure thanks to the controversial mini-budget that chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announced last week which sent the UK economy into freefall and the value of the pound plummeting, forcing interest rates to significantly increase.
However, as almost a reflection of how things have gone for Truss this week, the start of her interview was marred with problems leaving BBC viewers unable to see what was going on while Kuennsberg spoke to the prime minister live from Birmingham, ahead of the Conservative Party conference which is due to start on Sunday.
Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter
The technical issues saw the BBC feed go black just as the interview was about to begin. After a few seconds of nothingness the BBC News intro began to play before returning to the studio where the interview had already begun.
Baffled viewers and journalists began tweeting about the confusion, asking just what was going on with more than a few making jokes about the situation.
\u201cHave to imagine the technical difficulties at the start of Laura Kuenssberg's show was Liz Truss' handlers furiously pulling out any and every plug within reach in the studio to try and prevent that absolute car crash. My god. \n#gtto\n#BBCLauraK\u201d— Emerson Pike (@Emerson Pike) 1664698080
\u201cBBC Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg handily blacks out for about a minute and cuts off the start of Liz Truss interview.\u201d— Evolve Politics (@Evolve Politics) 1664696288
\u201cWTf happened on laura kuenssberg? Cutting to black three times so far, cut to bbc news credits. Impossible to follow. Then Liz Truss pops up mid interview.\u201d— Noreen O'Gallagher (@Noreen O'Gallagher) 1664696356
\u201cLiz Truss live-breaking the BBC - is there anything this woman can\u2019t destroy?\n\n#kuenssberg\u201d— Stephen will... (@Stephen will...) 1664696292
\u201cBBC Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg having serious technical issues and coverage blacking out during PM Liz Truss interview.\u201d— Cllr Martin Abrams\ud83c\udf39 (@Cllr Martin Abrams\ud83c\udf39) 1664696400
\u201cEven BBC cameras can\u2019t cope with the sight of Liz Truss. \n#technicalbreakdown #kuenssberg\u201d— Sarah Richards (@Sarah Richards) 1664696559
\u201cIt\u2019s Birmingham not the moon ffs!\u201d— Jacqui Smith (@Jacqui Smith) 1664696214
\u201cEither the BBC is having tech issues with the Truss interview or the very cameras have, understandably, fallen asleep.\u201d— Otto English (@Otto English) 1664696432
After the interview concluded Kuennsberg apologised for the problems. She said: "Just to say, thank you for sticking up with us during some technical glitches during that interview. Apologies for that."
Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.