WITHIN the first hour of the proroguing case starting at the Supreme Court, one of the judges remarked: “Some of us are struggling here.”

That struggle was with paperwork – the volumes of court documents which appeared not to be easily available or marked the same for each of the 11 judges.

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There was subsequently much rustling of paper as sheets were passed around the courtroom to try to make sure all had the correct copies.

The Supreme Court also registered huge traffic on its website for the live streaming of the case.

Its streaming service is usually accessed around 20,000 times per month, but yesterday morning alone it was accessed 4.4 million times. And, in the hour before the 1pm break for lunch, 2.8 million requests were logged.

Lady Hale said: “As usual, these proceedings are being live-streamed so that anybody who wishes to do so can watch the arguments as they unfold.This is a very important aspect of open justice and we hope that it will enable many people to understand what these appeals are all about and, just as importantly, what they are not about.”

Veteran broadcaster David Dimbleby spoke to people outside the court queueing to get in.

He said: “I lived through Suez, the miners’ strike, I lived through the poll tax debate and the trouble then. I lived through the Iraq demonstrations – I’ve never seen the country so divided as this.

“The next six weeks are clearly critical. I’ve never known the country so seriously riven by argument.”

Dimbleby said the case was “not just dramatic – it’s really, really important for all our futures”. He added: “The Prime Minister is accused of lying to the Queen – let’s put it bluntly – and getting Parliament suspended without good reason and that’s big potatoes, it has to be.”

A man dressed as Robocop who stood outside the court all morning, said Boris Johnson’s actions could set a “dangerous” precedent.

Charlie Rome, 35, said: “Robocop, he stood for the rule of law in a kind of dystopian future where there was corruption rife across the police and the corporations. The evidence suggests that Parliament was prorogued to avoid parliamentary scrutiny on this particular issue – today it’s a No-Deal Brexit, tomorrow it could be bringing back the death penalty, then who knows?”