Boris Johnson says John Major’s claim that he has ‘shredded’ UK’s reputation abroad ‘demonstrably untrue’ – as it happened

Boris Johnson speaks with British troops during a visit near Warsaw with the Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images

5.55pm GMT

Early evening summary

• Boris Johnson broke lockdown laws, appears to believe rules do not apply to him and is creating an atmosphere of mistrust in politics that threatens the long-term democratic future of the UK, Sir John Major has said. Generally Johnson, who has been in Belgium and Poland today on Ukraine-related visits, has not responded to Major’s speech, but the PM did say his predecessor’s claim that Johnson had “shredded” Britain’s reputation abroad was “demonstrably untrue”. (See 4.08pm.)

• Downing Street has pledged to reveal if Boris Johnson is fined by police for attending any parties while Covid restrictions were in force, but the prime minister refused to rule out staying on even he is found to have broken the law.

• Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has said it was not the job of officers guarding Downing Street to prevent illegal parties. (See 1.50pm.)

• Keir Starmer has launched an outspoken attack on the Stop the War coalition, in which Jeremy Corbyn is a leading figure, effectively accusing the campaign group of siding with Russia against Nato.

• Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, has has personally warned Moscow of tough sanctions that are to be imposed if Russia attacks Ukraine, during tense talks that Russia’s top diplomat said were like a conversation of “the mute with the deaf”.
  

5.46pm GMT

Starmer says Kurt Zouma should be dropped over cat cruelty

In his BBC interview Keir Starmer also said that the West Ham defender Kurt Zouma should be dropped after the video emerged of him dropping, kicking and slapping his pet cat. Asked if Zouma should be dropped, Starmer replied:

Yes he should be dropped. I don’t know what they were thinking in playing him the other night. That was just a mistake. It’s such a bizarre thing to be so cruel like that. It’s very, very odd, but I think the club needs to do the right thing, which is to drop him.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer tells @bbclaurak West Ham should drop Kurt Zouma over his “cruel” cat video.

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