4 NEWS
THE WEEK 28 May 2022The main stories...
It wasn’t all bad
For months, Johnson has been fending off questions by telling
people to wait for Sue Gray’s report, said The Times. Yet it
now appears that at a secret meeting with Gray
earlier this month, he suggested she drop the
report, asking: “Is there much point in doing
it now that it’s all out there?” The PM is
desperate to draw a line under Partygate, but
the fresh photos, and criticism of the police
inquiry, have only reignited it. It’s hard to see
anyone emerging from this affair with “even a
shred of honour”, said The Independent. Some
No. 10 officials “plainly should be ashamed of
themselves”. So should Johnson. How can he
square the photos of him toasting colleagues on
13 November 2020 with his insistence to MPs
that no party took place on that day?As for the Met, said The Observer, it too
deserves criticism for the “opacity” of its
inquiry. It must explain why the PM was reportedly only
investigated for two of the gatherings he attended, and why
junior officials were fined for certain events, when senior
officials had also attended. The PM’s critics are furious that the
Met’s £460,000 probe didn’t lead to further fines for the PM,
said the Daily Mail, but the truth is that too much time and
money was wasted on this overblown inquisition.Sue Gray’s long-awaited report into lockdown-
breaking parties in Downing Street was finally
released on Wednesday. In the 37-page
document, the senior civil servant condemned
a series of gatherings in No. 10 and Whitehall,
describing how officials enjoyed karaoke and
drank late into the night while the country was
under tight restrictions. The senior leadership
at Downing Street, wrote Gray, “must bear
responsibility for this culture”. In a statement
to the Commons, Boris Johnson said he was
“humbled” and had “learnt a lesson”, but hoped
that the Government could now “move on”.The publication of Gray’s report followed the
conclusion last week of the Metropolitan
Police’s investigation into “Partygate”. The force
revealed that 126 fixed-penalty notices had been levied on 83
officials. To the surprise of many, Johnson escaped any further
fines; he had already received one for attending a birthday
gathering in June 2020. The PM and the Met came under fresh
scrutiny on Monday after ITV published photos of Johnson
toasting colleagues next to a table strewn with empty bottles
at a leaving do for an aide on 13 November 2020.What happened What the editorials said
Johnson: time to “move on”?Sue Gray’s verdict
It’s hard to overstate the gravity of this looming crisis, said The
Economist. The high cost of staple foods has already brought
nearly 250 million people to the brink of
famine. And since Ukraine usually produces
enough food to feed 400 million people a year
– and is among the biggest supplier of staples to
poverty-hit countries in the Middle East and
north Africa – Russia’s blockade risks making
the situation far worse. An estimated 25 million
tonnes of corn and wheat – “equivalent to the
annual consumption of all of the world’s least
developed economies” – is stuck in Ukraine,
and will rot in stores if it can’t be shipped soon.Droughts in India and the US, poor crop yields
in China and soaring fertiliser costs have also
contributed to the food crisis, said The Times.
But immediate blame lies with Russia, whose forces have
crippled Ukraine’s agriculture sector and burned millions
of tonnes of grain stored in the silos. World leaders are now
pleading with Vladimir Putin to let grain shipments out of
Ukraine, said The Washington Post. If he refuses, then Putin’s
war could become Putin’s “global famine”.Unprecedented disruption of food supplies
caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine risks
triggering a global crisis, the International
Monetary Fund warned this week. The IMF
said soaring food prices – which are up 30%
in a year – will hit those at all income levels
and could set off a wave of migration from
the worst affected areas. Separately, the UN
Secretary-General António Guterres urged
Russia to unblock exports of Ukrainian grain,
and warned of “mass hunger and famine” in
years to come if the situation doesn’t improve.Together, Russia and Ukraine produce nearly
a third of the world’s wheat exports, 29% of
its barley exports, and 75% of its sunflower oil. But Russia’s
export capacity has been hit by sanctions, and its blockade
of Black Sea ports has severely restricted Ukrainian trade.
This week, Kyiv’s defence ministry said that Russia’s military
campaign was entering its most active phase, as its offensive
in the Donbas intensified (see page 7).What happened What the editorials said
Grain prices: up 59% this yearThe global food crisis
The National Opera of Ukraine
reopened last weekend for the
first time since the Russian
invasion in February. Saturday’s
performance of Rossini’s comic
opera The Barber of Seville was
reportedly given a ten-minute
standing ovation by the
audience in Kyiv, which included
soldiers in fatigues, some of
whom had never been to the
opera before. Only 300 tickets
are being sold for each
performance, in case the
auditorium has to be rapidly
evacuated during an air raid.The sight of delivery boys
dropping off groceries was once
commonplace in British towns.
Now it could return, as the
Co-op starts rolling out “walking
deliveries” for people who live
within 15 minutes of 200 of
its shops. The idea is that
the service, for orders worth
more than £15, will be used by
customers in smaller towns and
villages where rapid deliveries
are currently unavailable. In
a trial in Cornwall this year,
shoppers said that they used
the service to buy items they’d
forgotten, and for “top-ups”
between big shops.A statue of the 19thcentury
palaeontologist Mary Anning has
been unveiled in her home town
of Lyme Regis, following a
campaign by a local schoolgirl.
Aged 11, Evie Swire was hunting
for fossils when she asked her
mother if they could go and look
at a statue of Anning – the first
person to discover a plesiosaurus
skeleton. Evie’s mother admitted
that there wasn’t one, and a
campaign was born. “The main
reason I wanted to do it was
to make sure she got the
recognition she deserved,” said
Evie, now 15. Denise Dutton’s bronze figure of Anning was erected
on the seafront last week in front of a crowd of hundreds.COVER CARTOON: HOWARD MCWILLIAM