From partygate to Putin’s war: Boris Johnson rides on a rare wave of unity

The prime minister's stirring rhetoric on the crisis in Ukraine earns him a reprieve from his woes... for now at least

• Ukraine invasion: latest updates

It was the silence in the House of Commons - more than the words spoken from the dispatch box - that captured the magnitude of the moment, and the dramatic shift of political mood, on Thursday evening.

Boris Johnson had been woken at 4.10am that morning to be told Vladimir Putin's troops had crossed the border into Ukraine. It was what military intelligence had prepared him to expect.