5.29am EDT
05:29
Richard Ratcliffe, who is on hunger strike outside the Foreign Office over the government’s continuing failure to secure the release of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from detention in Iran, is a “very, very brave man”, a former health secretary has said. Jeremy Hunt told Sky News:
I went and delivered some coffee to him, he’s allowed to have black coffee on his hunger strike but nothing with milk or sugar.
He has fought tirelessly for five-and-a-half years since Nazanin’s been detained, but the thing that is different about Richard is that he decided right from the outset to go public about his campaign.
What that’s meant is that the whole world has come to understand Iran’s hostage-taking and the way they are grabbing innocent people and using them as a pawn of diplomatic leverage.
Whatever the disputes are between countries, we should never make the lives of innocent families dependent on solving a diplomatic dispute.
The prime minister, who sacked Hunt when he entered No 10 in 2019, has been heavily criticised for his role in the affair while serving as foreign secretary.
In 2017, Johnson wrongly told MPs Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been “teaching people journalism” before being detained by Tehran. Her family and her employer both maintained this was untrue but, within days, Johnson’s erroneous statement was cited as proof she was engaged in “propaganda against the regime” during a previously unscheduled court hearing.
5.14am EDT
05:14
The prime minister has spoken to the Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki this morning ahead of next week’s Cop26 summit, Downing Street says.
The prime minister looked forward to welcoming Prime Minister Morawiecki to Glasgow next week. He praised Poland’s shift away from reliance on fossil fuels towards renewable energy. He expressed his hope that further progress will be made on this and wider efforts on coal, cars, cash and trees.
The leaders discussed the UK-Poland relationship and agreed on its strength and importance in institutions like Nato. They resolved to further deepen cooperation across defence, security and wider foreign policy issues.
The prime minister updated Prime Minister Morawiecki on the latest discussions over the Northern Ireland protocol. He outlined the need to make urgent progress on this issue in order to protect the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement. He underlined his concerns about the role of the European court of justice in Northern Ireland and noted the debate in Poland about the role of the court too.
4.52am EDT
04:52
Tory ministers under fire over possible conflict of interest
Kevin Rawlinson
There is no evidence that ministers or officials considered potential conflicts of interest before handing government contracts to a former No 10 adviser, Whitehall’s independent watchdog has found.
The National Audit Office report has said two projects involving the disgraced financier Lex Greensill’s firm offered no material benefits to the NHS. Greensill Capital ran an early-payment scheme for pharmacies and a salary advance facility for employees of NHS trusts that did not receive the expected uptake.
Greensill had advised David Cameron’s government and later hired the former prime minister when he left office. Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said:
This report provides further information on the role of Lex Greensill and Greensill Capital in providing government services. It raises yet more questions over the government’s ability to prevent conflicts of interest and the independence of advice it receives.
The consequences once again fall squarely on the taxpayer, with increasing risks to value for money and promised savings vanishing into thin air.
You can read more on that by my colleague Rajeev Syal here:
Elsewhere, ministers have been criticised for not going far enough to protect LGBTQ+ people in England and Wales after they announced plans to create a new criminal offence for so-called talking conversion therapies that still allow them under some circumstances.
Critics have stressed that the proposals would leave a loophole that would allow adults to consent, saying they are unconvinced that “anyone can consent to such an abusive practice”. My colleague Aubrey Allegretti has the full story:
And you can follow our global Covid coverage – led by my colleague Martin Belam – here:
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