A senior British politician, Andrew Mitchell,has lost a high-profile libel action against the publishers of the biggest-selling daily newspaper, the Sun. That’s the easy bit.

For non-Britons, or indeed anyone who has not been following each twist and turn in atwo-year saga which takes in politics, policing, law, the media, language, class snobbery and the intricacies of who can use which gate at Downing Street, everything else gets a bit complex.

We’re here to help. Below is a handy guide to what happened and what it all means.

So what did happen?

It all began on the evening of 19 September 2012 when Mitchell, then chief whip of the government – effectively the enforcer for the ruling party, the person who keeps discipline and makes sure ministers vote as they are ordered – tried to cycle out of Downing Street. He was in a rush, en route to an engagement, and wanted to ride directly out of the main vehicle gates.

But to Mitchell’s displeasure, he was told to dismount and walk his bike through a pedestrian entrance. He argued with the officer on duty, PC Toby Rowland and, according to the officer’s account of the exchange, told him:

Best you learn your fucking place – you don’t run this fucking government – you’re fucking plebs.

All this was gleefully recounted in the next day’s Sun newspaper, and even though Mitchell denied using the word “plebs”, the continued bad publicity led him to resign just over a month later.

The row has rumbled on ever since, including minute examination of CCTV footage from the evening in question, and culminating in a legal case which finished on Thursday that saw Mitchell sue the Sun for libel over its story, while at the same time Mitchell was sued by PC Rowland for calling the policeman a liar.

The judge, Mr Justice Mitting,released a complex ruling, but one that concluded Mitchell did use “the words alleged or something so close”, including the word pleb.

What’s the big problem with pleb?

Meaning a common, or lower-class person, pleb is a largely outdated piece of slang in Britain, rarely heard by most in recent years before Mitchell inadvertently brought it back to prominence.

As insults go, pleb is relatively mild, and has a distinguished etymology, being derived from the Latin term plebeian, a member of the lower orders in ancient Rome. However, it is a class-based slur, and despite weekly newspaper articles decreeing the end of class, Britons remain obsessed by social status, especially the idea a compatriot might be judging them in connection with it.

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This obsession is all the more the case in the government in which Mitchell served, which is dominated by the products of England’s top private schools, which are, confusingly, known as public schools. Chief among these is Eton, attended by David Cameron. Mitchell went to the very marginally less posh Rugby –current fees for boarders about £32,000 (just over $50,000) a year – but was later an army officer and investment banker, which makes himvery posh.

The idea of a government minister using a class-laden insult to demean an ordinary policeman was seen as especially toxic. It didn’t help Mitchell’s case that he was annoyed at being held up while heading to the Carlton Club, an old and hugely posh private members’ club.

Who did people believe?

It depends who you asked, and when you asked them. Mitchell has something of a reputation for anger and blunt speaking – OK, for being very rude. Thejust-finished libel trial heard testimony about him calling one security officer “a little shit” and telling another, charmingly:

That’s a bit above your pay grade Mr Plod.

But there were also claims the police exaggerated the complaints, in part as a political manoeuvre targeting a government which has sought major restructuring of policing. The Plebgate affair, as it was inevitably know, was used as a campaign tool in fighting police cuts. Eventually, two officers were sacked, one for passing information to the Sun.

For about two days Mitchell was a semi-popular cause célèbre among British leftwing Twitter users, who liked to argue that if he could be fitted up by the police, what hope was there for young black men from the inner city. This didn’t last long.

Why did the judge decide against Mitchell?

In what might count as a slightly mixed verdict for PC Rowland, the judge ruled in part that he thought it unlikely the officer had invented the “pleb” exchange because he seemingly did not have the imagination to do so.

Is Mitchell uniquely rude among British ex-cabinet ministers?

No. Not even this week. David Mellor, who served in government in the early 1990s,was in the news this week for raging at a London taxi driver he thought had taken the wrong route. Among the choice sentences recorded by the driver on his mobile phone was this volley:

You’ve been driving a cab for 10 years, I’ve been in the cabinet, I’m an award-winning broadcaster, I’m a Queen’s Counsel. You think that your experiences are anything compared to mine?

What’s the lesson from all this?

Don’t be rude to the police. And be wary of trying to take them on in the courts – the police trade union, the Police Federation, has spent a reported £1m ($660,000) backing Rowland’s case. And if you must be rude as a British politician – asEmily Thornberry also knows only too well – justdon’t bring class into things.

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