ITV staff especially jubilant to see Phillip Schofield leave This Morning amid feud with Holly Willoughby, says Darren Grimes

The bombshell announcement comes just one day after his brother Timothy Schofield was sentenced to 12 years in jail for 11 counts of child sex offences.

Schofield announced he was stepping down from ITV’s This Morning after more than 20 years in a statement.

Schofield and Willoughby were said to be best friends, inseparable.

But in recent weeks their on-screen chemistry has looked about as comfortable as a Jeremy Paxman interview, frostier than a packet of Frosties in a freezer, as tortured as a trip to Guantánamo Bay.

There was more animation from a robot they had on the show last week than from the TV duo.

Oliver Dowden, the Deputy Prime Minister, standing in for Rishi Sunak at Prime Minister's Questions this week, described Sir Keir Starmer and his deputy Angela Rayner as "the Phil and Holly of British politics".

All lovey dovey on the surface, they turn it on for the cameras, but as soon as they're off, it's a different story. They're at each other's throats. Brutal.

So why has it taken Schofield this long? Word has it that some at ITV are especially jubilant about Schofield's departure.

He has put Holly Willoughby through an awkward psychodrama that was clearly untenable and impossible to defend.

Schofield and his on-screen wife faced criticism in September last year over claims they skipped the queue for our late Queen’s lying in state while attending as media members to film a segment for This Morning.

What on earth was Willoughby meant to say when it was revealed that Phillip Schofield’s brother told the TV host of sexual acts with a child?

In my view it was inevitable. ITV had to part ways with their silver sofa star and call it quits after viewing figures began to tank. But let's see what the panel think.

But is this the end of the story? Is there more to come out? Will we ever know? Should we know? Will staffers at ITV keep quiet?