Boris Johnson news live: Local elections not a referendum on PM, minister insists

Boris Johnson has said any threat or attack on British diplomats in Ukraine is “totally beyond the pale”.

Speaking to ITV’s Good Morning Britain about the UK’s ambassador, the PM said: “I’m proud of our diplomats in Ukraine and Melinda Simmons, who is going back to open the embassy and she has done an amazing job.”

Mr Johnson added that threats toward British diplomats are “totally beyond the pale” and that there is “no justification for it”.

He said the UK has “led the world in helping the Ukrainians to protect themselves against wanton aggression, barbaric aggression” and later added that the UK has also “marshalled the world in delivering a very tough package of economic sanctions”.

“We are not saying we are doing this to drive some geopolitical change or have some outcome in Moscow,” he said.

“What we care about is Ukrainian people and their suffering. It is totally unjustifiable to have a free country like Ukraine to be overwhelmed and obliterated like it has been.”

Boris Johnson tells interviewer Susanna Reid he is “honest” when asked about his statements to the Commons on Partygate.

The PM has faced accusations that he misled the house when he told MPs all rules were followed during lockdown.

Accepting that what he told the Commons was “inadvertently” wrong, he said: “I do my best to represent faithfully and accurately what I believe, and sometimes it’s controversial and sometimes it offends people, but that’s what I do.”

Boris Johnson is being interviewed by ITV ahead of the local elections on Thursday.

Stay tuned as the PM is questioned about Partygate, the cost of living crisis and the war in Ukraine.

Later he will become the first western leader to address Ukraine’s parliament.

Boris Johnson’s Conservatives are on course for their worst results at local elections since the 1990s, a new survey shows.

Labour is set to gain more than 800 seats while the Tories are set to lose almost 550 seats, according to a survey carried out by Electoral Calculus and Find Out Now.

The pollsters’ projected vote share – 39 per cent for Labour and 24 per cent for the Tories – would be the biggest gap between the parties at local elections since the mid 1990s, writes Adam Forrest.

Electoral Calculus and Find Out Now also says that if the projected results are replicated this week, it would be first time since 1996 that Labour take more than three times as many council seats as the Conservatives.

Martin Baxter, chief executive of Electoral Calculus, which conducted the survey with Find Out Now, said: “The renewed partygate focus has made a poor situation for the Conservatives even worse by persuading even more Conservative supporters not to turn out at the local elections.

“The results could now be bad for Boris Johnson, especially if the Conservatives lose many hundreds of council seats and key flagship councils like Wandsworth or Westminster.”

The UK’s international trade secretary Anne Marie Trevelyan has described a leaked document that the US Supreme Court could be poised to overturn the Roe v Wade decision allowing legalised abortion nationwide as “a matter of great concern”.

“It’s a matter of great concern, I think, to all women in the US if this is a rowing back on a 50-year state of things, but we’ll have to wait and see whether it’s true of not,” she told Sky News.

“That acceptance that women should have control over their bodies was something that set a standard for the rest of the world, and allowed women to be empowered in this very, very critical way.”

Ms Trevelyan added: “We’ll wait and see if this is a true document or not, but I think there will be a great deal of anxiety if that seems to be true.”

International trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan has rejected the idea that local election results would put Boris Johnson’s position at greater risk.

Asked if the elections will be a referendum on the PM, she said: “No. They aren’t all-out elections in most places.”

Ms Trevelyan said “sometime you do get a protest vote” but denied people would use their vote to protest against Partygate.

“There are some places where there are close fights … We’ll win some and we’ll lose some.”

She said the prime minister “continues to get on with the job, defending democracy and freedom in way that in Europe we haven’t seen for decade.”

Anne-Marie Trevelyan MP has said the Conservatives will not see a referendum on the prime minister, despite the recent controversy over Boris Johnson’s Partygate fine.

When questioned if her party are preparing to lose seats in Parliament, the Tory MP replied: “I would expect us to win some and lose some”.

Watch the full clip here:

Labour has written to Rishi Sunak demanding to know whether he or his family benefit from the continued presence of a company in Russia in which his wife holds a £400m stake.

Reports on Monday suggested that Indian-based IT giant Infosys – founded by the father of Mr Sunak’s wife Akshata Murty – is still operating in Moscow despite promising a month ago it was leaving.

Shadow economic secretary Tulip Siddiq called on the chancellor to clarify when the company’s Russian office will be shut down and whether he or any of his immediate family are benefiting from its continued operation.

Our political editor Andrew Woodcock reports:

Most asylum seekers in Calais are still hoping to make it to the UK despite plans that could see them sent to Rwanda, according to a new survey.

A charity polled those waiting in migrant camps in northern France in the days since the British government passed a law making it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive without permission.

Care4Calais found most had heard of the deal with Rwanda, which will see people who arrive “illegally” in the UK under new immigration rules sent to the east African country to apply for asylum there instead.

Three quarters of those polled said the plans would not put them off making the Channel crossing, the charity said.

My colleague Zoe Tidman reports.

Universities minister, Michelle Donelan, said that female-only shortlists for parliamentary candidates are “demeaning” to women.

Boris Johnson is facing calls from within his own party to ensure that a woman is chosen to fight the by-election in the east Devon seat of Tiverton and Honiton triggered by Parish’s resignation after being caught watching pornography in the Commons chamber.