Boris Johnson news – live: Hancock book would be ‘disgusting’, says Labour as it gains poll lead over Tories

Boris Johnson has been criticised for his “disappearing act” while Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is imprisoned in Iran.

Labour MP Tulip Siddiq said that Mr Johnson did not visit her constituent’s husband once during his hunger strike protesting the ongoing imprisonment of his wife.

She tweeted: “Will the Prime Minister take 5 minutes out of his day to visit my constituent today?”

Richard Ratcliffe ended his hunger strike today on the 21st day, over health fears. He is expected to be checked by a doctor soon.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national, has been in custody in Iran since 2016 after being accused of plotting to overthrow the government.

After ending his three-week-long protest, Mr Ratcliffe said defence secretary Ben Wallace and some Labour MPs visited him at his camp outside the Foreign, Commonswealth and Development Office (FCDO).

He told the PA news agency: “We’ve certainly not had the Prime Minister come. And yes I do think he has the capacity to do a disappearing act.

“I think his absence this past three weeks is telling. His absence on Nazanin’s case since he became Prime Minister is reasonably telling.”

Mr Ratcliffe said it is too late for Mr Johnson to visit, and he added that Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe has requested a phone call from the PM.

Jeremy Corbyn said that no one who was on his frontbench would have been allowed to take a second job.

The former Labour leader’s comments come after it was reported that he stopped Sir Keir Starmer, who was shadow Brexit secretary, from taking a “lucrative” second job at law firm Mishcon de Reya in 2017.

It also comes after reports have revealed that a number of Tory MPs have had more than one job.

Mr Corbyn, whose whip was withdrawn last year by his successor Sir Keir over his comments relating to allegations of anti-semitism in Labour, spoke on LBC radio today.

Sir Keir, a QC, had said that he had already turned down the offer before he was told he would not be allowed to accept it by Mr Corbyn’s team.

Mr Corbyn told LBC: “Nobody who was in a frontbench position appointed by me would be allowed to take a second job of any sort … I made that clear to everybody including [Sir Keir].”

He added that he thought it “reasonable” if MPs write articles or books “if it doesnt take over their lives completely.”

Richard Ratcliffe has said he is ending his hunger strike 21 days after beginning the protest over his wife’s detention in Iran.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian dual national, has been in custody in Iran since 2016 after being accused of plotting to overthrow the government.

Her husband – who was also on hunger strike in 2018 – said that he was ending the hunger strike outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office because of fears for his health.

Mr Ratcliffe said he was starting to get pains in his feet overnight, and after talking to a doctor the decision was made to end the hunger strike. He said he plans to go to hospital to get checked out this afternoon before eating.

Yesterday, Mr Ratcliffe said he was “deflated” and “outraged” that the government failed to state, in meetings held during his hunger strike, how it will secure his wife’s release.

He had told the BBC that his talk with foreign minister James Cleverly felt like “a bit of a placebo”, and that ministers and officials “clammed up” during their meeting when the subject of a £400 million debt to Iran was raised.

According to her family, Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was told by Iranian authorities that she was being detained because of the UK’s failure to pay the outstanding amount.

The debt was accrued when the UK cancelled Iran’s order for battle tanks after the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Matt Hancock is considering an offer to write a memoir on his time as health secretary.

Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said the idea that he could be allowed to “spin” his side of how he handled the Covid pandemic was “absolutely disgusting”, adding that it would be an “insult” to people who have lost family and friends to the virus.

“You’d think the health secretary who presided over one of the worst death tolls in the world would have some humility or seek to reflect on the many lives lost, rather than try and cash in on the tragedy,” said Lobby Akinnola, spokesperson for Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice.

He added: “The fact that Matt Hancock thinks it’s appropriate for bereaved families to have to listen to his spin on their loved ones’ deaths, before the truth has come out via the inquiry, says it all about the attitude of the man.”

Mr Hancock had quit the Cabinet earlier this year after he was exposed breaking Covid social distancing rules by having an affair with his aide at work.

Read all the details here by Adam Forrest

Scotland’s problem with raw sewage in rivers has emerged days after SNP MPs criticised the UK Government’s record.

Data sourced by the Lib Dems stated that Scottish Water is presiding over an “unacceptably high” number of leaks.

The utility firm’s figures show that in 2020 there were a total of 12,725 “spill events”, up 40 per cent on 2016.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats have called for environment minister, Mairi McAllan MSP, to address parliament about Scotland’s 12,000 sewage leaks.

The Scottish Lib Dems’ climate emergency spokesperson Liam McArthur MSP said: “Just days after SNP MPs lambasted the UK Government for voting to allow raw sewage into rivers, it emerges that their Scottish Government has a very smelly problem of its own.

“Neither the SNP nor the Conservatives can be trusted with Scotland’s waterways … The environment minister should come to Parliament to deliver a statement on what is being done to clear up this sewage leak crisis.”

Reporting by PA

Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist and member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), said he feels it is “unlikely” Covid restrictions will be needed this Christmas.

The Imperial College London academic said modelling from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has indicated that expanding eligibility for the booster shots could help “drive down transmission to low levels”.

The prediction comes after PM Boris Johnson warned yesterday that “storm clouds” of a new coronavirus wave are gathering over parts of Europe, as many countries – such as the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany – are preparing to tighten restrictions.

New data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has suggested infection levels are continuing to fall across the UK.

The figures show about one in 60 people in private households in England had Covid-19 in the week to November 6, down from one in 50 the previous week.

In Wales, about one in 45 people is estimated to have had the virus in the week to November 6, down from one in 40 the previous week.

In Northern Ireland, the figure is about one in 75 people, down from one in 65 the previous week, while in Scotland it is one in 85 – down from one in 80.

Dominic Cummings has claimed that Boris Johnson uses a secret exit so that he can slip away from his office at 10 Downing Street.

The former senior adviser made the claim about his former boss in an email newsletter he sent out on Friday.

Mr Cummings, who resigned from his position in November 2020 after a fractious working relationship with the PM, said Mr Johnson had a new exit installed so he can “escape his office without outer office knowing”.

Mr Johnson likes to leave his office, enter the Cabinet room, and then go “out those doors into the garden and away”, Mr Cummings reportedly said.

The latest edition of his newsletter detailed an argument between him and Mr Johnson, in which the PM had insisted that his office does not have enough exits – the Daily Mail reports.

Conservative members will today decide a candidate to contest next month’s by-election in North Shropshire.

Owen Paterson has quit his seat in response to PM Boris Johnson’s U-turn on plans to change Parliamentary procedures to try to get the MP out of a predicament.

It came after Mr Paterson was accused by Kathryn Stone, Commissioner for Parliamentary Standards, of “severe breaches” of MP lobbying rules after he was paid just over £10,000 in total for about 18 hours of work per month by two companies.

In North Shropshire today, Tory members are to meet to decide which hopeful out of a shortlist of three people will go forward in the process to become the party’s candidate – according to the Shropshire Star.

Shortlisted are Graeme Currie, who has contested the seat before, former MEP David Hallam, and Cllr Kuldip Sahota who is former leader of Telford and Wrekin Council.

It is understood that there are around 400 members of the North Shropshire Conservative Association who would be eligible to vote.

North Shropshire Constituency Labour Party is set to decide on its candidate tomorrow.

Labour is calling for a Bill to be brought forward that would list the true ownership of properties and assets in the UK.

Pat McFadden, the shadow economic secretary to the Treasury, said that the government has promised and failed over nearly four years to bring forward the Registration of Overseas Entities Bill.

He wrote in the Guardian: “Labour is today calling for the government to stop this prevarication, and to commit to bringing forward this legislation by 10 December 2021 – the fourth anniversary of the UK anti-corruption strategy, which in 2017 committed to bringing a draft bill in that session of parliament for the establishment of a public register of beneficial ownership of overseas legal entities.”

Mr McFadden said that steps should also be taken to reform Companies House to tackle the use of shell companies to obscure the true ownership of companies and assets.

He added: “Companies House must be empowered to become a vigilant guardian of propriety, not be left as a passive library of data.”

The Wolverhampton South East MP said that Labour’s plan to set up an illicit finance taskforce would make the UK “the most difficult place possible to launder the proceeds of looting and kleptocracy.”

Home secretary Priti Patel’s plan to force migrant boats back into French waters has been thrown into doubt by complex rules imposed by the Home Office to prevent violations of international law.

The Independent reports that any push-back operations using Border Force staff on jet-skis would have to meet numerous conditions, including the presence of French authorities to receive vessels.

But a letter to Ms Patel from her French counterpart earlier this year says the “use of maritime refoulements to French territorial waters would risk having a negative impact on our cooperation”.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow home secretary, said: “This is a clear sign of desperation from the home secretary because of her failure to grip this crisis. She must take responsibility, show leadership and change course.”

Here’s home affairs correspondent Lizzie Dearden with the full story