Speaker fiasco lays bare ungovernable dysfunction of House Republicans

One branch of US government has ground to a halt amid death threats and screaming matches as Republicans fail to unite around a candidate for speaker

Death threats. Screaming matches behind closed doors. A futile cycle of votes that put internecine warfare on full public display. The Republican party this week sank into new depths of disarray and dysfunction - with no remedy in sight.

Never before has America gone so long without a speaker of the House of Representatives and, critics say, not for a very long time has a major party appeared so broken. It has left a branch of the US government leaderless at an extraordinary moment of peril in the Middle East and Ukraine.