What Nazanin Should Have Said

I would like to start by saying how grateful I am. To Liz Truss, who manages to look so inspiring on Instagram, and to Boris Johnson. It is true to say that having Boris Johnson as Prime Minister has truly righted the situation after all those previous Foreign Secretaries, who weren't as good as Liz Truss, failed.

As an Iranian-born dual national, I am especially duly grateful that the United Kingdom has gone to all the trouble of paying a decades-old debt, just so I can come to what I can regard - until Priti Patel revokes my citizenship - as home. 

I would like to thank all the people with Twitter accounts featuring Union Jacks and words like "Brexiteer" in their profiles. If they had not been referring to "mad mullahs" for all these years, the Iranian government would never have caved in and released me in the way they did.

I should especially add my husband Richard. Not only has he repeatedly gone on hunger strike to support me - but more importantly, he was grateful to Liz Truss. Whose taste in hats is arguably second only to Boris Johnson's stylish wearing of hi vis. I am very grateful. And, as his wife, I know he is right.

And I would like to make it clear that, with my dual nationality, I have really no right to be British at all - as you can see by looking at my skin tone. And so I am so grateful that people are prepared to consider me a bit British by marriage. 

Finally, I would like to thank Vladimir Putin. Without the oil crisis he generated by invading Ukraine, which meant Boris Johnson needed to find alternative sources,  I might still be under house arrest in Iran. So, like so many of the people with Union Jacks and "Brexiteer" in their profiles on Twitter, I owe so much to him.

I am very grateful.