Sir Philip Barton refused to say precisely when Raab had been on holiday in August
The head of the diplomatic service has admitted failing to show leadership after he began a three-week holiday two days before the Foreign Office internally accepted Kabul was about to fall to the Taliban.
Sir Philip Barton stayed on holiday until 28 August and during bruising evidence to the foreign affairs select committee, he admitted this was a mistake.
Continue reading...Chris Bryant reveals Pen Farthing was sent a letter from Boris Johnson’s PPS confirming evacuation
A leaked letter suggests Boris Johnson and the Foreign Office may have covered up the prime minister’s involvement in airlifting more than 150 dogs and cats from Afghanistan, a senior MP has said.
On Tuesday it emerged that the charity worker Pen Farthing received a letter from Johnson’s parliamentary secretary saying Farthing, his staff and the animals could be rescued from Kabul amid the Taliban takeover in August, when thousands of Afghans with UK connections were also trying to flee.
Continue reading...‘Fahim’ was cleared to leave Kabul. Then the phone went dead. Now he moves house every two days to evade capture
Fahim, a journalist who had worked with British media organisations, was one of thousands of Afghans who approached the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) for help to escape Afghanistan after the Taliban’s conquest this summer.
Told he was cleared to travel with his family to the UK, he was also one of the many left behind as the promised help from the FCDO failed to materialise.
Continue reading...Ex-diplomat claims string of failings within department led to ‘people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban’
Tens of thousands of Afghans were unable to access UK help following the fall of Kabul because of turmoil and confusion in the Foreign Office, according a devastating account by a whistleblower.
A former diplomat has claimed bureaucratic chaos, ministerial intervention, lack of planning and a short-hours culture in the department led to “people being left to die at the hands of the Taliban”.
Continue reading...Two-thirds of contracts awarded before ‘eight-stage process’ was put in place were given out after referrals from ‘VIP lane’
At least 46 PPE deals were awarded to firms put in a special “VIP lane” by Conservative ministers, MPs and officials during the Covid pandemic before a formal due diligence process was put in place, it has emerged.
Ministers had claimed all PPE contracts were put through a rigorous “eight-stage process” for assuring quality and value for money, when criticised over the “VIP lane” via which contracts worth £5bn were handed to companies with political or Whitehall connections.
Continue reading...Analysis: changes to cabinet and public mood from last year make further restrictions less likely
The date ringed in red in Westminster is 18 December – not the date for Christmas parties but the time by which people should start to know how different their festive plans may look.
For this government it is quite an inauspicious date, just a day before soaring cases forced Boris Johnson to finally put the brakes on Christmas mixing plans last year and tell most families they would be spending celebrations apart.
Continue reading...Poll reveals huge public cynicism, with just 5% of respondents believing politicians work for public good
Trust in politicians to act in the national interest rather than for themselves has fallen dramatically since Boris Johnson became prime minister, according to figures contained in a disturbing new study into the state of British democracy.
The polling data from YouGov for the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) shows a particularly sharp fall in trust in the few weeks since the Owen Paterson scandal triggered a rash of Tory sleaze scandals.
Continue reading...British authorities accused of interrogating parents who came seeking help when their daughters went missing
Details of how police attempted to criminalise British families whose children were trafficked to Islamic State (IS) in Syria are revealed in a series of testimonies that show how grieving parents were initially treated as suspects and then abandoned by the authorities.
One described being “treated like a criminal” and later realising that police were only interested in acquiring intelligence on IS instead of trying to help find their loved one. Another told how their home had been raided after they approached police for help to track down a missing relative.
Continue reading...Met asked to investigate reports of alleged breaches of Covid lockdown rules at No 10
The prime minister has been reported to the police by Labour MPs over allegations there were at least two parties in Downing Street during lockdown restrictions last year.
Neil Coyle, Labour MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, wrote to the Met police commissioner, Cressida Dick, asking her to investigate reports that the prime minister spoke at a leaving do in November and also allowed a staff Christmas party to go ahead in December.
Continue reading...Government privately being urged by advisers to tell people to work from home as UK cases of variant hit 134
UK ministers have been warned they cannot wait for new research on the Omicron variant and must act now to prevent a potentially “very significant wave of infections” that risks overwhelming the NHS.
A 75 further cases of the variant have been identified in England, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said on Friday night, bringing the total number of UK confirmed cases to 134. The head of the agency, Dr Jenny Harries, said: “We have started to see cases where there are no links to travel, suggesting that we have a small amount of community transmission.”
Continue reading...As tensions with Russia and China increase, the prime minister meddles in foreign policy to distract from domestic woes
Relations between the world’s great powers are tenser than ever since the cold war. Troops are massing along Russia’s border with Ukraine. Chinese ships and planes are openly threatening Taiwan. Japan is rearming in response. Turkey is renewing its belligerence towards its neighbours. Russia is backing east-west fragmentation in Bosnia.
Where Britain stands in all this is dangerously unclear, drifting on a sea of Boris Johnson’s gestures and platitudes. The Royal Navy currently has a £3.2bn aircraft carrier waving the union flag in the South China Sea, completely unprotected. China could sink it in an hour. In the Black Sea, a British destroyer provocatively invades Russian waters off Crimea, showing off to the world’s media. Last week, the British foreign secretary, Liz Truss, advanced her bid for her party’s leadership by sitting astride a tank in Estonia and warning Russia that Britain “stood firm” against its “malign activity” in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Britain’s outgoing defence chief, Sir Nick Carter, estimates that the risk of accidental war with Russia is now “the highest in decades”.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
Louie French becomes MP for suburban London seat, but Tories’ majority of nearly 19,000 cut to 4,478
The Conservatives have held the safe seat of Old Bexley and Sidcup in the first in a series of closely watched parliamentary byelections.
Louie French was elected as the new MP, replacing the well-liked former cabinet minister James Brokenshire, who died in October from lung cancer.
Continue reading...Latest updates: Boris Johnson says ‘no need’ to cancel Christmas events as UK reports 53,945 daily coronavirus cases
Jeremy Corbyn posted a tweet this morning promoting a virtual Stop the War fundraiser this Christmas, not an in-person one. So my earlier post (now removed) about this being an example of a party going ahead that might not meet with George Freeman’s approval was completely wrong. I apologise for the mistake.
The Cabinet Office has been fined £500,000 for accidentally disclosing the postal addresses of the 2020 new year honours list recipients online, in breach of data protection laws.
On 27 December 2019 the Cabinet Office published a file on GOV.UK containing the names and unredacted addresses of more than 1,000 people announced in the new year honours list. People from a wide range of professions across the UK were affected, including individuals with a high public profile.
After becoming aware of the data breach, the Cabinet Office removed the weblink to the file. However, the file was still cached and accessible online to people who had the exact webpage address.
When data breaches happen, they have real-life consequences. In this case, more than 1,000 people were affected. At a time when they should have been celebrating and enjoying the announcement of their honour, they were faced with the distress of their personal details being exposed.
The Cabinet Office’s complacency and failure to mitigate the risk of a data breach meant that hundreds of people were potentially exposed to the risk of identity fraud and threats to their personal safety.
Continue reading...Report follows French president’s complaint about PM’s behaviour after they discussed sinking of refugee boat in the Channel
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, referred to Boris Johnson in a private conversation as a “clown”, according to reports in France.
The political magazine Le Canard enchaîné, often described as the French equivalent of Private Eye, reported Macron as saying the British prime minister has “the attitude of a vulgarian”.
Continue reading...Senior UK scientist says extent of threat posed by Omicron will not be clear until end of year
People should not assume that Covid will evolve to become a milder disease, a senior scientist has warned, adding that the threat posed by the Omicron coronavirus variant will not be clear until the end of December.
Prof Neil Ferguson, head of the disease outbreak analysis and modelling group at Imperial College London, told MPs on Wednesday that while evolution would drive Covid to spread more easily the virus might not become less dangerous.
Continue reading...PM says all guidance was followed but Keir Starmer says Johnson ‘taking British public for fools’
Boris Johnson has not denied that parties were held in Downing Street last winter despite the lockdown at the time, saying only that no Covid rules were broken.
Johnson was challenged during prime minister’s questions about the allegations, first reported by the Mirror. Keir Starmer told MPs that Johnson was “taking the British public for fools for following the rules”.
Continue reading...Britain has lost an estimated 50% of its public toilets in the past 10 years. This is a problem for everyone, and for some it is so acute that they are either dehydrating before going out or not leaving home at all
For about an hour and a half before she finishes work and gets the bus home, Jacqui won’t eat or drink anything. Once, while waiting at the bus stop, and suddenly needing the loo, she had to head to the other end of town; the public toilets nearby had closed. She didn’t make it in time. Jacqui, who has multiple sclerosis, which can affect bladder and bowel function, says: “I go everywhere with a spare pair of knickers and a packet of wipes, but it’s not something you want to do if you can help it.”
Jacqui was diagnosed with MS five years ago, and in that time she has noticed a decline in the number of public toilets. Of the ones that are left, one only takes 20p coins, “and in this increasingly cashless society, you have to make sure you always go out with a 20p”. The other block of loos are “up two flights of stairs or the lift, so it’s not the most suitable access”. If she is out for the day, she will research where the loos are, and it has meant missing out on trips with friends, such as to an outdoor festival, where the loos just weren’t accessible enough. The MS Society has given her a card, which she shows in cafes requesting access to their loos when she’s not a customer, and every person she has flashed it to “has been wonderful”. But, she adds: “You use it as a last resort because you don’t really want to burst into a cafe in front of people and say: ‘Excuse me, I need to wee.’”
Continue reading...Former president says Prince Harry ‘has been used horribly’ in interview with Nigel Farage
The former US president Donald Trump has accused the Duchess of Sussex of being “disrespectful” to the Queen and the royal family.
In a wide-ranging interview with the politician turned broadcaster Nigel Farage, Trump said he thought the Duke of Sussex had been “used horribly”.
Continue reading...When she first took office her fellow leaders included Blair, Chirac and Bush. Three of those at her first G8 summit look back on her legacy
European Commission president, 2004-14
Continue reading...Ministers to ramp up vaccinations to 3.5m a week as minimum gap for boosters is halved to three months
Ministers are targeting a return to half a million UK Covid jabs a day as the waiting time for boosters was cut to three months in a bid to outpace the Omicron variant that scientists believe is already spreading in the community.
Confirmed Omicron cases rose to 11 in England and Scotland on Monday, with scientific advisers braced for hundreds more to be detected in the next week or so.
Continue reading...