THE husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe began a hunger strike outside the Foreign Office today to demand urgent action from the government over his wife’s continued detention in Iran.

Richard Ratcliffe is calling on Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his ministers to publicly describe his wife as a hostage of the Iranian state and build this into ongoing negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme in order to end her ordeal.

He is also demanding that the government makes a commitment to settle an outstanding tank debt with Iran — something the PM promised to do in 2017 — and to take action against Iranian officials deemed responsible for his wife’s detention.