Dear Mr Johnson,

I am glad we finally spoke on the phone yesterday. I am grateful too that you agreed to meet. I would like us to discuss the practicalities of coming with you to Iran to visit Nazanin. That means you personally asking the Iranian authorities to vouch for my safety.

Your mistake in saying that Nazanin was in Iran training journalists has raised the stakes for my wife. She was on the news in Iran again; the broadcaster repeated that you had “revealed” Nazanin’s so-called crimes. The net effect of that is that she is in danger. I want you to solve this mess created in your name.

My wife is angry now. She has been in prison for 19 months. She has lost control of her emotions because she has lost all control over her life.

My daughter Gabriella, who is three, is also suffering. She saw her mother on TV, and knew her grandparents, who she is living with, were distraught at the coverage. She knows now not to tell the other children at nursery that her mother is in prison.

Gabriella can’t remember her life before Iran. Her English is almost gone – she speaks Farsi now.

Nazanin is being used as a bargaining chip against the UK, now justified by your words. That direct connection to you is why I believe my wife should be entitled to diplomatic protection. As Foreign Secretary, I would like you to give her that protection.

I do not believe it is in Nazanin’s interests for there to be any resignations. My complaint is not that her imprisonment has become a diplomatic incident this past week. It is that it wasn’t for 19 months.

I don’t want to be a campaigning husband and father. I want to go back to being an ordinary husband and father, with my wife & child at my side.

It is time for the government to take responsibility for Nazanin’s suffering and its role in prolonging it. It’s time for us to bring Nazanin home together.

Yours, Richard Ratcliffe