Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has said he “could not speak or sleep” when he found out his wife had breast cancer.
Susie Cleverly, 49, was diagnosed with triple positive breast cancer in December 2021 after spotting dimpled skin underneath her right breast the month before – nearly a year ago to the day.
At the time, her husband was a minister in the Foreign Office, where Liz Truss was foreign secretary in the Boris Johnson administration.
The couple, who have been married for 29 years after meeting at university and have two teenage sons, spoke to Sky News’ Beth Rigby Interviews… programme about her diagnosis, how they have coped, and what it has been like to handle it all while holding one of the great offices of state.
After being diagnosed, Mrs Cleverly rang her husband, who was on the train into Westminster, and told him the doctor thought it was cancer.
“I just burst into tears and I think I cried most of that day,” she said.
‘I just couldn’t get the words out’
Mr Cleverly, 53, who has been the MP for Braintree since 2015, added: “I said I’ll come home.
“I had to ring my private secretary in the Foreign Office saying ‘can you cancel meetings because I need to go home’, and he said ‘is everything okay minister?’
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“I tried to say Susie might have cancer, I just couldn’t get the words out, I couldn’t speak – I like to talk, but I just couldn’t speak.
“I said I’ll text you, and, you know, this organisation is amazing. Liz Truss was my boss at the time, she was absolutely amazing.
“I went home, Susie and I talked it through, and I tried to ring again to explain what was going on – and I still couldn’t say a word.
“For the next couple of hours everything was done on WhatsApp, and it really hit me, I never felt anything like that before.”
‘The most frightening word was cancer’
Mrs Cleverly then had about eight mammograms in one day, but they could not see anything until a scan found three lumps in her breast and a node in her arm.
After an MRI, the doctors found more than 12 lumps.
“I wasn’t scared when they told me that,” she said.
“I think the most frightening thing was the word ‘cancer’, so as soon as I was on board with having cancer, I just thought I’m going to get on with it.”
Massive wave of empathy from all MPs
Mr Cleverly said their family and friends have been “fantastic”, with many shaving their heads in solidarity and for charity.
He said despite politics being “ultra-competitive”, MPs from all parties have been very supportive.
“There was this massive wave of empathy and friendship, even from people I didn’t even know particularly well, that was really touching,” he said.
Mrs Cleverly’s treatment left her incredibly ill, with her toenails falling out, infected hives, her face ballooning and stomach and mouth ulcers.
She has now had a mastectomy but is still having immunotherapy to reduce the risk of recurrence and is on a waiting list for reconstructive surgery.
“I feel great, I feel so much more like me,” she said.
‘I thought I might lose her’
But Mr Cleverly admitted there were a “couple of times” he thought he might lose his wife.
Holding back tears, he said: “I haven’t thought about my mortality, and certainly haven’t ever really given any thought to losing Susie, or what that might feel like – and then suddenly you get to confront that. And, we are close.”
The MP, who was made foreign secretary by Ms Truss in September, said he could not have taken the job if it had been earlier in the year when she was going through chemotherapy.
Mrs Cleverly said: “I would have said, do it. But you could have done so.”
Her husband added: “Had I been asked perhaps six or seven months ago when you went through chemo, I don’t think I would have been able to give it the energy and the focus I think the job deserves.
“She’s always been very, very supportive of me and my career. And I do travel a lot. I think the big thing from this is, I think both of us, maybe me, I’m less blase about the time we do have together.
“So when we are together, we’re very, very conscious of making that time really valuable and really meaningful.”
Talking about his job, Mr Cleverly added that he truly believes Ukrainians will succeed in taking their country back from Vladimir Putin, with the best option now for the Russians to withdraw.
He added that Russia should give all the Ukrainian land it has taken back, including Crimea.
“We will continue to support the Ukrainians until this is done,” he said.
Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.
Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.
After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.
Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.
The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.
Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.
“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.
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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.
“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”
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Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”
The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.
This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.
Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.
Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.
Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.
He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”
“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.
The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).
A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.
The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.
In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.
Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.
“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”
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He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”
Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.
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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.
Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”
Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.
NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.
EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’
Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.
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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?
Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.
At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.