Starmer held overnight call to give support to ‘democratically elected’ president Zelenskyy
Keir Starmer has spoken to Volodymyr Zelenskyy to express support for him “as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader” after Donald Trump claimed Ukraine’s president was a “dictator”
A Downing Street spokesperson said:
The prime minister spoke to President Zelenskyy this evening and stressed the need for everyone to work together. The prime minister expressed his support for President Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s democratically elected leader and said that it was perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during war time as the UK did during the second world war.
Ukraine had been scheduled to hold elections in 2024, but they were cancelled due to the full-scale Russian invasion of the country launched by Vladimir Putin nearly three years ago in late February 2022.
Other senior political figures have also reacted to the US president’s comments. Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch said Zelenskyy was “the democratically elected leader of Ukraine who bravely stood up to Putin’s illegal invasion”. Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said Trump’s comments “must be where the line is drawn”
Key events
Defence secretary John Healey spent Thursday morning holding bilateral talks with Norwegian defence minister Tore Sandvik deep within a mountainside fortress.
Healey and his counterpart held their discussion at Norwegian Joint Headquarters, the command centre for Norway’s military, which is tunnelled into the side of a mountain near the town of Bodø in the north of the Scandinavian country.
They discussed shared security priorities, including Ukraine and defending the high north from Russia, PA Media reports.
Culture secretary Lisa Nandy says she will be “discussing” a Gaza documentary with the BBC after it emerged the film’s narrator was the son of a Hamas deputy minister.
Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, which aired on Monday on BBC Two, is narrated by 13-year-old Abdullah Al-Yazouri, who speaks about what life is like in the territory amid the war between Israel and Hamas.
It later emerged that he is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.
The BBC apologised “for the omission of that detail from the original film”, and has edited the programme.
When asked about the controversy, Nandy told LBC: “It’s something that I will be discussing with them, particularly around the way in which they sourced the people who were featured in the programme.
“These things are difficult and I do want to acknowledge that for the BBC, they take more care than most broadcasters in terms of the way that they try to portray these things.
“They’ve been attacked for being too pro-Gaza. They’ve been attacked for being anti-Gaza.
“But it is absolutely essential that we get this right.”
She added that she is “about to have” a discussion with the BBC about its reporting guidelines, after a consultation which ended last year.
We have more figures from the NHS which shows the number of number of people in hospital in England with norovirus has jumped sharply to reach a new high for this winter.
An average of 1,160 hospital beds were filled each day last week by patients with diarrhoea and vomiting or norovirus-like symptoms, up 22% from 948 the previous week.
Norovirus levels also remain higher than at this point 12 months ago, when an average of 509 beds were filled with patients with symptoms, and also two years ago (629 patients), PA Media reports.
Here are details from the NHS situation report which shows that 29.1% of patients arriving by ambulance at hospitals in England last week waited at least 30 minutes to be handed over to A&E teams, up from 27.9% in the previous week, PA Media reports.
The figure stood as high as 42.2% at the start of the year.
Some 9.6% of ambulance handovers last week were delayed by more than an hour, up week-on-week from 9.1%, but well below the peak of 21.3% in early January.
Meanwhile, an average of 13,767 hospital beds per day were filled last week in England with patients who were fit to be discharged.
This is down from 14,087 the previous week, which was the highest number so far this winter.
On average, 41% of patients ready to leave hospital last week were actually discharged each day.
Kiran Stacey
Kiran Stacey is a political correspondent for the Guardian based in Westminster
The former head of the Foreign Office has warned Rachel Reeves not to cut Britain’s international aid spending, amid signs the chancellor is willing to raid the development budget to help pay for higher defence spending.
Simon McDonald, the former lead civil servant at the Foreign Office, said it would damage Britain’s global reputation if Reeves chose to reduce aid as she looks for savings across Whitehall in this year’s spending review.
Government sources have told the Guardian the aid budget is one of a number of areas being eyed up for savings, with the chancellor demanding that ministers justify every item of government spending.
But with the US president, Donald Trump, having recently frozen the US aid programme, McDonald warned such a move would have serious implications for the world’s poorest people.
He told the Guardian: “At times of financial need, development assistance is an easy target for trimming because international assistance is not generally voters’ priority.
“I hope the Treasury is not sharpening its knife for further cuts: not only has the UK’s international reputation taken a knock from the 2020 cut, the international need for such help is greater than ever with the slashing of USAid.”
Read more of Kiran Stacey’s exclusive report here: Former Foreign Office head warns Reeves not to cut international aid
Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland Beatrice Wishart has taken the “difficult decision” not to stand in next year’s Holyrood election, PA Media reports. 69-year-old Wishart said it has been an “honour and a privilege” to represent the islands in Holyrood, and vowed to “continue to work tirelessly for all constituents.”
Two of the Green Party of England and Wales MPs in Westminster have also made remarks about Donald Trump’s comments on Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy this morning.
Ellie Chowns, MP for North Herefordshire, said “Trump’s comments become more delusional and dangerous by the day. It’s more vital than ever that the UK government speaks truth to power, stands up for British values and interests, and challenges Trump’s tsunami of disinformation.”
Siân Berry, the Brighton Pavillion MP, alluding to comments made yesterday by disgraced former prime minister Boris Johnson yesterday, said “Real danger comes from brushing off Trump’s lie.”
Meanwhile Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has joined mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham [see 9.05am] in questioning the absence of comment on Ukraine from senior leadership in Reform UK. Davey posted to social media to say “You seem unusually quiet there Nigel Farage, any thoughts?”
The Politics Weekly podcast this week features John Harris hearing from the Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour and columnist Gaby Hinsliff about what a resolution could look like in Ukraine, and the role that the UK may have to play in it. You can listen to it here.
Graeme Wearden
Graeme Wearden has some worrying news for chancellor Rachel Reeves here:
Confidence among UK consumers has dropped off a cliff since last summer, as people – particularly women – grow more worried about the state of the economy, and their own finances.
A new survey from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Opinium has found that the public’s expectations for the economy worsened for a fifth month running in February.
Households are also gloomier about their own personal finances, as they anticipate further price rises in the shops – as retailers pass on higher taxes.
February’s drop in confidence continues a decline that started last July, when the Labour party won the general election – and swiftly began warning about ‘tough choices’ and ‘painful decisions’ to fix the country’s finances.
You can read more of Graeme Weardon’s live business coverage here: UK consumer confidence sinks to new low
In some business news, the owner of British Gas has reported its annual profits have dropped by a third. The supplier’s parent company, Centrica, reported adjusted earnings of £2.3bn for last year, down by a third from 2023 when its profits reached £3.5bn. Energy correspondent Jillian Ambrose has the details …
The co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales Carla Denyer has reiterated the party’s call for the imposition of rent controls.
Reacting to a report claiming that average UK private rents increased by 8.7% over the last year, Denyer posted on social media to say:
Yet another unsustainable rise in rents – time for the government to put a stop to rip off rents and stop landlords treating tenants as cash cows. Rent controls are long overdue and are badly needed to give all renters a home they can afford.
Back on the subject of Ukraine for a second, shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel has posted a clip of her interview on Sky News this morning to social media, and reiterated the message she was giving, saying:
For three years president Zelenskyy has led Ukraine in standing up to Putin’s aggression and he is fighting for sovereignty, freedom and our values. The UK must provide leadership on defence spending increasing and work with our European and Nato allies to step up on defence and security.
