Is this the week in which it could be claimed that Rishi Sunak has become a prime minister like Boris Johnson?
On Monday, Mr Sunak faced allegations of dodgy declarations of financial interests.
On Wednesday, he hurled Johnson-style insults at Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions and caved in to right-wing Tory MPs on small boats and migration.
And now, after delaying a decision on the report on bullying allegations against Dominic Raab until a second day, Mr Sunak faces claims that he’s attempting to cling on to a close ally in trouble and defy calls to sack him.
It all sounds a bit familiar.
Mr Sunak’s week began with the re-announcement of a maths policy that was overshadowed by the Commons sleaze watchdog suggesting the PM’s declarations of his wife’s financial interests didn’t add up.
The new Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Daniel Greenberg, announced an inquiry into why Mr Sunak failed to mention his wife’s shareholding in a childcare company which could benefit from measures in Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s March Budget.
The omission came when Mr Sunak was quizzed by MPs on the Liaison Committee about Koru Kids and specifically asked by Labour’s Catherine McKinnell if he had anything to declare. He giggled and mumbled: “No, all my disclosures are declared in the normal way.”
Image: Sunak failed to make his expected decision on Dominic Raab’s future on Thursday
It was a very Johnsonian answer. And his interests weren’t declared in the normal way, because the register of ministers’ interests hadn’t been published for over a year. And, don’t forget, Mr Sunak didn’t appoint an ethics adviser for months.
Mr Greenberg pointed out that the MPs’ code of conduct says they “must always be open and frank in declaring any relevant interest in any proceeding of the house or its committees”.
In other words, while speaking in the Commons chamber or in a committee.
And even when Number 10 published the PM’s full list of interests on Wednesday they didn’t include details of the shareholdings held by his heiress wife Akshata Murty.
Mr Johnson regularly clashed with the Standards Commissioner: on earnings, property income and holidays. In one report, he was accused of an “over-careless attitude towards observing the rules of the house”.
At PMQs, meanwhile, Mr Sunak was no more Mr Nice Guy as he unleashed a barrage of Johnson-style attacks on the Labour leader, branding him “Sir Softie” on crime during his time as Director of Prosecutions and denouncing him as a “leftie lawyer”.
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The Labour leader also asks the prime minister to explain why ‘nothing works’ after 13 years of Conservative government.
Tory MPs loved it, yelping and howling with delight, as Labour MPs sat-grim faced. It was all a reminder of Mr Johnson’s jibes against Sir Keir, when he regularly called him “Captain Hindsight” and “Crasheroonie Snoozefest” at PMQs.
Later, Mr Sunak delighted the Tory right by bowing to their demands for amendments to the Illegal Migration Bill.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman will get new powers to ignore so-called “pyjama injunctions” by judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, blocking migrant deportation flights to Rwanda.
The cave-in followed a bacon sandwiches breakfast in Downing Street for MPs on the Common Sense Group of right-wingers on Tuesday morning. Remember how Mr Johnson regularly used to host the pro-Brexit European Research Group in Number 10?
Then, shortly before the Commons rose for the weekend, it emerged that there would be no Raab decision on Thursday, prompting allegations of “dither and delay” from Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
The word from inside Number 10 was that the PM, however, was taking time to go through Adam Tolley’s report thoroughly and consider it.
And the longer the wait for the PM’s decision on Mr Raab, the more it looks like he’s attempting to save one of his closest allies.
To be fair to Mr Sunak, cabinet ministers Sir Gavin Williamson and Nadhim Zahawi went quickly when they were in trouble. But Mr Raab lives to fight another day.
Mr Johnson was always determined not to hand his opponents a scalp. Is Mr Sunak now doing the same?
A large-scale Russian attack through the night into Sunday injured at least 11 in Kyiv and killed three people in towns surrounding the capital.
There were attacks elsewhere as well, including drone strikes in Mykolaiv, where a residential building was hit.
Image: An apartment building destroyed after a Russian attack in Mykolaiv. Pic: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
‘Massive’ attack
In Kyiv, the city’s administration warned “the night will be difficult”, as people were urged to remain in shelters.
The city’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko described it as a “massive” attack.
He said: “Explosions in the city. Air defence forces are working. The capital is under attack by enemy UAVs. Do not neglect your safety! Stay in shelters!”
It came after at least 15 people were injured in attacks the night prior.
Russia claimed it also faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday, and that it intercepted and destroyed around 100 of them near Moscow and across Russia’s central and southern regions.
Image: A municipality worker cleans up after a Russian drone strike on Kyiv. Pic: Reuters
Russia ‘dragging out the war’
Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine continued a prisoner exchange, marking a rare moment of cooperation in the war.
Amid the most recent attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated his calls for sanctions on Russia.
Russia “fills each day with horror and murder” and is “simply dragging out the war”, he said.
Image: A resident looks at an apartment building that was damaged in a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters
“All of this demands a response – a strong response from the United States, from Europe, and from everyone in the world who wants this war to end,” Mr Zelenskyy added.
Every day “gives new grounds for sanctions against Russia”, he said, and each day without pressure proves the “war will continue”.
Ukraine, meanwhile, is ready for “any form of diplomacy that delivers real results”.
Nine of a doctor’s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Warning: This article contains details of child deaths
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.
Graphic footage shared by the Hamas-run Palestinian Civil Defence shows the bodies of at least seven small children being pulled from the rubble.
Rescuers can be seen battling fires and searching through a collapsed building, shouting out when they locate a body, before bringing the children out one by one and wrapping their remains in body bags.
In the footage, Dr Al Najjar’s husband, Hamdi Al Najjar, who is also a doctor, is put on to a stretcher and then carried to an ambulance.
The oldest of their children was only 12 years old, according to Dr Muneer Alboursh, the director general of Gaza’s health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
Image: Nine children were killed in the strike. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
“This is the reality our medical staff in Gaza endure. Words fall short in describing the pain,” he wrote in a social media post.
“In Gaza, it is not only healthcare workers who are targeted – Israel’s aggression goes further, wiping out entire families.”
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
British doctors describe ‘horrific’ and ‘unimaginable’ attack
Two British doctors working at Nasser Hospital described the attack as “horrific” and “unimaginable” for Dr Al Najjar.
Speaking in a video diary on Friday night, Dr Graeme Groom said his last patient of the day was Dr Al Najjar’s 11-year-old son, who was badly injured and “seemed much younger as we lifted him on to the operating table”.
Image: Hamdi Al Najjar, Dr Al Najjar’s husband who is also a doctor, was taken to hospital. Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
The strike “may or may not have been aimed at his father”, Dr Groom said, adding that the man had been left “very badly injured”.
Dr Victoria Rose said the family “lived opposite a petrol station, so I don’t know whether the bomb set off some massive fire”.
Image: Pic: Palestinian Civil Defence
‘No political or military connections’
Dr Groom added: “It is unimaginable for that poor woman, both of them are doctors here.
“The father was a physician at Nasser Hospital. He had no political and no military connections. He doesn’t seem to be prominent on social media, and yet his poor wife is the only uninjured one, who has the prospect of losing her husband.”
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Nineteen of Gaza’s hospitals remain operational, all of them are overwhelmed with the number of patients and a lack of supplies
He said it was “a particularly sad day”, while Dr Rose added: “That is life in Gaza. That is the way it goes in Gaza.”
Sky News has approached the Israeli Defence Forces for comment.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza began when the militant group stormed across the border into Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and abducting 251 others.
Israel’s military response has flattened large areas of Gaza and killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.
The head of the UN has said Israel has only authorised for Gaza what amounts to a “teaspoon” of aid after at least 60 people died in overnight airstrikes.
UN secretary general Antonio Guterres said on Friday the supplies approved so far “amounts to a teaspoon of aid when a flood of assistance is required,” adding “the needs are massive and the obstacles are staggering”.
He warned that more people will die unless there is “rapid, reliable, safe and sustained aid access”.
Image: A woman at the site of an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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Gaza: ‘Loads of children with huge burns’
Israel says around 300 aid trucks have been allowed through since it lifted an 11-week blockade on Monday, but according to Mr Guterres, only about a third have been transported to warehouses within Gaza due to insecurity.
The IDF said 107 vehicles carrying flour, food, medical equipment and drugs were allowed through on Thursday.
Many of Gaza’s two million residents are at high risk of famine, experts have warned.
Meanwhile, at least 60 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes across Gaza overnight.
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Ten people died in the southern city of Khan Younis, and deaths were also reported in the central town of Deir al-Balah and the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, according to the Nasser, Al-Aqsa and Al-Ahli hospitals where the bodies were brought.
Image: A body is carried out of rubble after an Israeli strike in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
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‘Almost everyone depends on aid’ in Gaza
The latest strikes came a day after two Israeli embassy workers were killed in Washington.
The suspect, named as 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, Illinois, told police he “did it for Gaza”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney of fuelling antisemitism following the shootings.
Mr Netanyahu also accused Sir Keir, Mr Macron and Mr Carney of siding with “mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers”.
Image: Palestinians search for casualties in Jabalia, northern Gaza. Pic: Reuters
But UK government minister Luke Pollard told Sky News on Friday morning he “doesn’t recognise” Mr Netanyahu’s accusation.
Earlier this week, Mr Netanyahu said he was recalling negotiators from the Qatari capital, Doha, after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251 others.
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The militants are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.
Israel’s offensive, which has destroyed large swaths of Gaza, has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.