Portrait of the week: Zelensky channels Churchill, Russia blocks BBC and Bercow banned from parliament

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President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine addressed a packed House of Commons by video, echoing Winston Churchill by declaring that Ukrainians would fight in the fields and in the streets. He said: ‘Please make sure that our Ukrainian skies are safe.’ Wearing a blue and yellow tie, the Speaker, clearly moved, thanked him. Earlier, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced a ban on Russian oil imports in the coming months, but no ban on gas imports. He proposed a six-point plan that included an international humanitarian coalition and maximising economic pressure on Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia. Mr Johnson also said the government would publish a strategy for producing more energy in the UK. Petrol rose above 155p a litre. The Commons rushed through the economic crime bill, intended to exert sanctions against Russian oligarchs and suchlike miscreants.

John Bercow, the former speaker of the House of Commons, was prohibited for life from obtaining a security pass to parliament after the Independent Expert Panel upheld 21 allegations against him, including unfounded criticism of Lord Lisvane, the former Commons Clerk, made ‘at length and at volume’ with ‘derogatory inferences about his upbringing’.

In the seven days up to 7 March, 786 people had died with coronavirus, bringing total deaths (within 28 days of testing positive) to 162,147. Numbers with Covid remaining in hospital in the UK stayed level at about 10,700. Paulette Hamilton, a retired nurse, won the by-election at Erdington, Birmingham, for Labour with 55 per cent of the vote in a turn-out of 27 per cent; the Lib Dems came sixth, well behind the Trotskyist Dave Nellist. The Queen resumed face-to-face engagements, meeting Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada.

Abroad

More than two million people had fled Ukraine in the first two weeks of Russia’s invasion.