ICYMI: Sue Gray, Boris, Brexit and bills – this week’s five biggest stories – Metro.co.uk

Its been another totally normal week on this little island we call GREAT Britain (Picture: Reuters/Getty/PA)

We really shouldnt complain, because it helps us pay the bills, but the news really has been a bit much this week.

Everywhere you look, anyway you turn, there it is NEWS.

Political scandal, economic turmoil, Brexit, that sort of stuff. Mounds of it. Towering, teetering stacks of it.

Its all just been a bit much recently and were currently dusting off a bottle of Pernod left over from Christmas to try to forget it all.

You, on the other hand, reader, should not be so lucky.

It is your duty as a proper grown up to read and understand this stuff.

We know better than anyone that its an absolute drag so were going to make it as pain-free as possible for you.

By the time youve read this, youll understand it all and can flounce off to the pub, safe in the knowledge that youre an actual proper adult person and not basically a baby with a bank account.

After weeks of threatening to drop her hotly anticipated report, Sue Gray finally delivered.

The civil servant rated best newcomer at this years political drama awards released a slimmed down summary of the findings from her investigation into Downing Street parties.

In the end, it was as notable for what it didnt contain as what it did.

Because the Met have launched a criminal investigation into a dozen gatherings, the dossier was shorn of any detail, coming in at just 16 pages (one for each alleged party investigated).

But make no mistake, this was a damning excoriation of the prime minister and his Number 10 operation.

Ms Gray uncovered failures of leadership and judgment, excessive consumption of alcohol and serious failings.

In civil service language a lexicon designed to be as relentlessly dull as possible that translates as an absolute s***show.

Boris Johnson, who loves a U-turn about as much as a knees up, committed to publishing the full version at the end of the Met inquiry after tying himself in knots by desperately attempting not to give that commitment.

That was Monday morning. Things did not improve.

TL;DR: Sue Gray put out an EP rather than a full album but it was still banging.

After the publication of the Gray report, Mr Johnson headed off to the Commons for his latest public flogging.

It was brutal. Theresa May gleefully stuck the boot in, a former minister told him to go, Sir Keir Starmer called him a man without shame who, just like he has done all his life, has damaged everything and everyone on his way.

The PM reiterated his previous apology, promised to overhaul Number 10 and then dodged questions for long enough until he could get out of there.

And that might just have ushered in a rare lull in the ongoing bin fire that is Mr Johnsons political fortunes. All he had to do was stick to his lines, not say anything too daft.

But that just aint Boris.

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Instead, the PM dredged up an internet conspiracy theory that Sir Keir, who used to be the countrys most senior prosecutor and was knighted for his efforts, failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile.

This claim is what is known in the trade as absolute steaming bull mess and the prime minister had decided to step right in it.

The comment genuinely horrified many in his own party. Chancellor Rishi Sunak, health secretary Sajid Javid and deputy prime minister Dominic Raab have all publicly distanced themselves from the slur.

Munira Mirza, a Number 10 aide who has stuck with Mr Johnson through thick and thin since he was mayor, had heard enough. She quit over the scurrilous claim, a real body blow for the PM.

That set off 24 hours of political bloodshed dubbed (by me) The Night of the Long Stem Wine Glasses.

At last count, four more aides are gone. The other exits appear to be more to do with the promised post-partygate overhaul but, honestly, who actually knows anymore.

So, after a heady week, this is where the prime minister is: Publicly accused of a failure of leadership, his senior ministers embarrassed to associate with his comments and his Number 10 team which is under police investigation falling apart.

TL;DR: If the Jimmy Savile slur was a dead cat, it turned on Boris and ate him alive.

We dont know about you, reader, but were skint.

Everything literally everything is getting more expensive all the time and its not going to slow down any time soon.

After years of the economy remaining in a semi-frozen state, its now going through a weird post-Covid moody period.

Food prices, petrol prices, rail fares, taxes everything is going up.

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The main problem is energy. Not only is it making production more expensive for most companies which leads to prices going up its making turning the heating on a lavish luxury.

Ofgem announced this week the price cap is going up by 700 a year to help suppliers stay afloat amid a massive surge in the global cost of gas (and, of course, maintain a profit).

The chancellor has announced some limited support measures which could amount to 350 for some households.

Obviously, thats welcome but you dont need to be an economist to work out thats not going to cover the full rise.

Oh, and youre going to pay it back via your energy bills over a few years anyway.

The Bank of England has increased interest rates to try and calm inflation. Why?

Well, because, macroeconomic policy dictates that um, borrowing costs mean thatwell, because

Okay, fine, we have no idea and its the weekend so were not figuring it out. Feel free to read the Financial Times.

TL;DR: Were skint, youre skint, the country is skint.

This year marked the two-year anniversary of the UK sashaying out of the European Union and charging headlong into an uncertain future.

The world did not end. Nor did a new era of milk and honey embrace us. Instead, weve muddled on, with a fair few complications along the way.

To celebrate, Boris Johnson popped his head out of his foxhole to announce a new BREXIT FREEDOMS BILL which CUTS RED TAPE and all that stuff that gets some people all sweaty round the collar.

But over the Irish Sea, Northern Ireland was on hand to remind everyone that this thing isnt really over.

To cut a long story short, a key tranche of Boris Johnson Brexit bill was the NI protocol. He hailed it as a work of diplomatic genius at the time but has spent the last two years trying to renegotiate it.

For a whole host of political, cultural and historic reasons you should really already know, where you put a trade border in Northern Ireland issensitive.

The unionists, led by the DUP in Belfast politics, loathe it and this week unilaterally ordered border officials to down tools and ignore it.

Their first minister resigned in protest over the protocol, plunging its long-term sustainability as well as power-sharing arrangements in Stormont into total disarray.

Its an ongoing legal and political quagmire which no one appears to have the political will or ability to solve.

Why does it matter? This episode underscores a big myth at the heart of British politics: that the prime minister somehow got Brexit done.

He did not. He got a fair bit of it done, sure, but the process is far from over and were still figuring a lot of it out.

But enough of this Remainer nonsense pour yourself a glass of sovereignty and take a deep breath of that sweet, sweet freedom.

TL;DR: The government threw a birthday party for Brexit and Brexit got too drunk.

Well, that was all a bit grim, wasnt it? Let us just dig a nice story out to warm your cockles before we KIDDING.

Were celebrating a vile week by replacing the customary funny story with a suitably gross one.

Meet Jess Taylor. Jess lost her TV remote and, like so many before her, closed her eyes and reached deep into the bowels of her sofa to have a root around for it.

Jess will regret that until the day she dies. Inside she found a warchest of nail clippings, hundreds of the things.

Its enough to make anyone living in a rented place or sitting on a second-hand sofa to look at it and wonder whats below the surface?

Also, Jess, if you happen to have found a tenner down there, please send it to 1 Metro Towers, London. Ta.

TL;DR: Dont look down.

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ICYMI: Sue Gray, Boris, Brexit and bills - this week's five biggest stories - Metro.co.uk