Madame von der Leyen announces mandatory energy cuts across the European Union. Gray Connolly is not impressed:

Peak hours = morning and evening, during the times people are getting ready to go to work, and when they come home. If there's a recession, and factories and workplaces are shuttered, they're all going to be at home. What then?

And what happens when vast crowds gather in the miserable, wintry streets of European capitals, and demand that their governments tell Brussels to kiss their freezing-cold backsides? What happens to the EU then? Serious question. Is Madame going to denounce them all as Putin symps?

Meanwhile, how's it going with the Brexiteers? Not well:

British Gas owner Centrica is in talks with banks to secure billions of pounds in extra credit to meetballooning collateral demands as a result of extreme volatility in energy markets.

People familiar with the talks described the FTSE 100 company’s request for additional short-term financing as “pre-emptive” in case the situation deteriorates.

The move by the UK’s largest supplier of gas and electricity to households is the latest sign of the strains spreading across the energy sector as Russia’s cuts in gas supply to Europe send wholesale prices soaring.