Video of King Charles Greeting U.K. PM Entertains Internet: 'Dear Oh Dear'

King Charles III appeared to give an off-the-cuff verdict on greeting Britain's struggling prime minister when he said: "Dear oh dear."

Liz Truss was invited to form a government by Queen Elizabeth II on September 6, just two days before the monarch's death.

Since then, a "mini-budget" pledging unfunded tax cuts launched by her Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng appeared to spark financial turmoil and swipes from the International Monetary Fund.

Truss crashed in the polls, with a survey by YouGov published on Thursday becoming the latest to give the opposition Labour Party a significant lead of 28 points in this case.

As senior figures in the governing Conservative Party brief U.K. political journalists about her collapsing prospects daily, Truss attended a meeting with the king in front of TV cameras Wednesday.

The pair had met before in the aftermath of the queen's death, but this was their first face-to-face weekly briefing of the kind viewers of The Crown will be accustomed to seeing recreated on screen.

Truss said: "Your Majesty, lovely to see you again."

Charles replied "back again," before a sharp intake of breath could be heard and the king added: "Dear oh dear, anyway, now..."

The footage then cut out as the meeting proceeded in private, away from the cameras, leaving many wondering what the pair discussed.

Footage posted by Chris Ship, ITV's royal editor, was watched 5.2 million times on Twitter while one quote Tweet alone was liked close to 100k times.

Brendan May reposted the footage and tweeted: "This is one of the greatest things I've ever seen."

Journalist Nick Bryant wrote on Twitter: "'Dear oh dear, anyway.' King Charles meeting Liz Truss. A regal meme is born."

Robert Jobson, author of Charles at Seventy, told Newsweek: "Whenever I've done those things they never say anything really noteworthy.

"But you can occasionally pick up something but it's all to do with mood and what they're saying at the time. But I wouldn't have thought this was his opinion on the prime minister.

"With all these things, normally there is no reporter there and there's just stills but with this, the camera is there. They'll need to resolve it. They can't keep doing this because it leaves it open to speculation."

James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, was grilled about the exchange on radio station LBC by presenter Nick Ferrari, who said: "It's hardly a message of support, Mr. Cleverly."

The Cabinet minister said: "So Nick, I think you're trying to present that as a political statement. I view it as much more an empathetic statement to someone, to a leader of our country, he is our head of state, to his head of government, and he recognizes that everyone in the country is dealing with a tough winter ahead."