Summary
Well, it’s been another busy day in Westminster, with more letters of no confidence going in to the 1922 Committee chair Sir Graham Brady and Boris Johnson finally getting around to that call with Vladimir Putin.
Here is a brief round-up of what’s been going on throughout Wednesday:
- Boris Johnson has now held his delayed phone call with the Russian president Vladimir Putin as the situation on the Ukrainian border continues to escalate. It is understood the prime minister expressed his “deep concern” about Russian aggression to Putin this afternoon and warned that a further incursion into Ukraine would be a “tragic miscalculation”.
- A third Tory MP has become the latest to go public today in calling for a vote of no confidence in the prime minister. Gary Streeter, the Conservative MP for South West Devon has posted on his Facebook account that he “cannot reconcile the pain and sacrifice of the vast majority of the British public during lockdown with the attitude and activities of those working in Downing Street” and has submitted a letter of no confidence.
- Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling-up secretary, has criticised Michael Gove’s long-awaited white paper, claiming it is evidence of “a government in freefall: out of ideas, out of energy”.
- Keir Starmer accused Boris Johnson of “parroting the conspiracy theories of violent fascists” for political gain after the prime minister doubled down on false claims about the Labour leader’s blame for the failure to prosecute Jimmy Savile.
- Lord Goldsmith, a Foreign Office and environment minister, has told peers that a “misunderstanding” was to blame for an official in his office writing an email saying Boris Johnson had authorised the evacuation of animals from Kabul last summer.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the UK politics blog for today. We will be back, as ever, in the morning. Thanks for following along. Goodnight.
Boris Johnson has just tweeted about his call with the Russian president Vladimir Putin about the Ukraine crisis.
He wrote: “I spoke to President Putin this afternoon to express my deep concern about Russia’s hostile activity on the Ukrainian border.
“Any further incursion into Ukrainian territory would be a tragic miscalculation.
“Dialogue and diplomacy is the only way forward.”
I spoke to President Putin this afternoon to express my deep concern about Russia’s hostile activity on the Ukrainian border.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) February 2, 2022
Any further incursion into Ukrainian territory would be a tragic miscalculation.
Dialogue and diplomacy is the only way forward. pic.twitter.com/zljO2y9Tj9
