I see Johnny Mercer blames the British State for the problem, but fails to mention who was in charge of the State at that time.
Mind you I was reminded of that pic of people falling off the US transport planes as they fled the advance of the Taliban. Who would take such a risk if the incoming future government were seen to be reasonable.
Trump’s and Biden’s decision to cut and run was catastrophic. Not just for many Afghans, but for the message of weakness which it transmitted.
I see Johnny Mercer blames the British State for the problem, but fails to mention who was in charge of the State at that time.
Mind you I was reminded of that pic of people falling off the US transport planes as they fled the advance of the Taliban. Who would take such a risk if the incoming future government were seen to be reasonable.
Johnny Mercer does tell us who was in charge. He was (sort of):-
It is mind-boggling that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) could email a spreadsheet of all those with ties to the British state to an Afghan national, over the internet, to post on Facebook for the Taliban to see...
...this whole farcical process has been the most hapless display of incompetence by successive ministers and officials that I saw in my time in government... ... The Home Office, the MoD, the Department for Levelling Up and the Foreign Office just could not seem to work together; the prime minister [Rishi] asked me to try and unblock it from my neutral position in the Cabinet Office. ... ... I had no idea why the injunction existed in the first place; the list had appeared on Facebook and everyone, including the media, seemed to know about it. Officials seemed to get a bit of a kick out of something being “Top Secret”. ... ... The MoD has tried at every turn to cut off those from Afghan special forces units from coming to the UK for reasons I cannot fathom.
They also lied to themselves about doing it. The UK’s director of Special Forces told me personally that he was offended and angry by my suggestion that his organisation was blocking the Triples [around 1,200 Afghan special forces soldiers who'd fought alongside the British].
In the passage of this injunction being lifted it has emerged one individual UKSF Officer rejected 1,585 applications by himself.
Certain MoD ministers had a criminal lack of professional curiosity as to why the Triples were being rejected when there were so many subject matter experts who said they clearly should be eligible. ... ... And the net result of this spectacular cluster is that we’ve let into this country thousands with little or tenuous links to the UK, and still some Afghan special forces we set up the bloody schemes for remain trapped in Afghanistan, Pakistan or worse, Iran. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/15/johnny-mercer-ineptitude-of-british-state-exposed/ (£££)
I see Johnny Mercer blames the British State for the problem, but fails to mention who was in charge of the State at that time.
Mind you I was reminded of that pic of people falling off the US transport planes as they fled the advance of the Taliban. Who would take such a risk if the incoming future government were seen to be reasonable.
Johnny Mercer does tell us who was in charge. He was (sort of):-
It is mind-boggling that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) could email a spreadsheet of all those with ties to the British state to an Afghan national, over the internet, to post on Facebook for the Taliban to see...
...this whole farcical process has been the most hapless display of incompetence by successive ministers and officials that I saw in my time in government... ... The Home Office, the MoD, the Department for Levelling Up and the Foreign Office just could not seem to work together; the prime minister [Rishi] asked me to try and unblock it from my neutral position in the Cabinet Office. ... ... I had no idea why the injunction existed in the first place; the list had appeared on Facebook and everyone, including the media, seemed to know about it. Officials seemed to get a bit of a kick out of something being “Top Secret”. ... ... The MoD has tried at every turn to cut off those from Afghan special forces units from coming to the UK for reasons I cannot fathom.
They also lied to themselves about doing it. The UK’s director of Special Forces told me personally that he was offended and angry by my suggestion that his organisation was blocking the Triples [around 1,200 Afghan special forces soldiers who'd fought alongside the British].
In the passage of this injunction being lifted it has emerged one individual UKSF Officer rejected 1,585 applications by himself.
Certain MoD ministers had a criminal lack of professional curiosity as to why the Triples were being rejected when there were so many subject matter experts who said they clearly should be eligible. ... ... And the net result of this spectacular cluster is that we’ve let into this country thousands with little or tenuous links to the UK, and still some Afghan special forces we set up the bloody schemes for remain trapped in Afghanistan, Pakistan or worse, Iran. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/15/johnny-mercer-ineptitude-of-british-state-exposed/ (£££)
A great time for James Stupidly to launch his 'let's evolve the system not burn it down' civil service lovebombing campaign.
Morning all. The Afghan Story will be/is big, and damaging to both Con and Lab, although that might be ameliorated by them not attacking each other over it. Its the cover up that gets you, every time.
In the meantime, polling from More In Common this week
Ref 27 (-2) Lab 24 (=) Con 20 (+1) LD 13 (-1) Green 9 (+2) SNP 3 (=)
They also put up another hypothetical featuring the dried fruit party last week, its on their website in July data tables for anyone interested, we will see if they are running this weekly.
Morning all. The Afghan Story will be/is big, and damaging to both Con and Lab, although that might be ameliorated by them not attacking each other over it. Its the cover up that gets you, every time.
In the meantime, polling from More In Common this week
Ref 27 (-2) Lab 24 (=) Con 20 (+1) LD 13 (-1) Green 9 (+2) SNP 3 (=)
They also put up another hypothetical festuring the dried fruit party last week, its on their website in July data tables for anyone interested, we will see if they are running this weekly.
Mmm. Can see the Reform vote potentially dropping off. Did predict the Tory recovery (though its MOE). Calling bullshit on the Labour stickiness though. Yes there is a resilience in the 'donkey with a red rosette' vote but after the utter chaos of the previous weeks, no way the Labour vote remains unchanged. I suspect methodology changes based on past voting behaviour.
And yes, this is me questioning a poll I don't like.
They can't even blame the Tories on inflation, the previous government left office with inflation down to 2% and generally falling/stable. This is all on Labour and their idiotic tax/spending policies. There's no new external shocks, no COVID, the wars in Ukraine/Israel have already been factored in, Trump's tariffs should make UK prices lower given export diversion by China and other affected countries.
If ever we needed evidence that Labour haven't got a clue how to run the economy this is it. In fairly benign conditions, with no substantial external factors they've let inflation go up from 2.2% when they took over in July to 3.6% last month and still rising. They've caused this, not global conditions, not the previous government, they did. The Tories need to absolutely destroy them on inflation, they actually did the hard work and got inflation back down to acceptable levels, Labour have completely thrown that away.
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/jul/15/i-believe-my-leadership-tim-davie-insists-he-is-right-person-to-lead-bbc
MRDA.
It is mind-boggling that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) could email a spreadsheet of all those with ties to the British state to an Afghan national, over the internet, to post on Facebook for the Taliban to see...
...this whole farcical process has been the most hapless display of incompetence by successive ministers and officials that I saw in my time in government...
...
The Home Office, the MoD, the Department for Levelling Up and the Foreign Office just could not seem to work together; the prime minister [Rishi] asked me to try and unblock it from my neutral position in the Cabinet Office.
...
...
I had no idea why the injunction existed in the first place; the list had appeared on Facebook and everyone, including the media, seemed to know about it. Officials seemed to get a bit of a kick out of something being “Top Secret”.
...
...
The MoD has tried at every turn to cut off those from Afghan special forces units from coming to the UK for reasons I cannot fathom.
They also lied to themselves about doing it. The UK’s director of Special Forces told me personally that he was offended and angry by my suggestion that his organisation was blocking the Triples [around 1,200 Afghan special forces soldiers who'd fought alongside the British].
In the passage of this injunction being lifted it has emerged one individual UKSF Officer rejected 1,585 applications by himself.
Certain MoD ministers had a criminal lack of professional curiosity as to why the Triples were being rejected when there were so many subject matter experts who said they clearly should be eligible.
...
...
And the net result of this spectacular cluster is that we’ve let into this country thousands with little or tenuous links to the UK, and still some Afghan special forces we set up the bloody schemes for remain trapped in Afghanistan, Pakistan or worse, Iran.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/15/johnny-mercer-ineptitude-of-british-state-exposed/ (£££)
https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/208347/taxing-the-wealthy-hmrc-does-not-know-how-many-billionaires-pay-tax-in-the-uk/
Inflation is ticking up again. It was thought that it wouldn't rise this month. Food inflation is driving it, up each of the last 3 months.
The Afghan Story will be/is big, and damaging to both Con and Lab, although that might be ameliorated by them not attacking each other over it. Its the cover up that gets you, every time.
In the meantime, polling from More In Common this week
Ref 27 (-2)
Lab 24 (=)
Con 20 (+1)
LD 13 (-1)
Green 9 (+2)
SNP 3 (=)
They also put up another hypothetical featuring the dried fruit party last week, its on their website in July data tables for anyone interested, we will see if they are running this weekly.
And yes, this is me questioning a poll I don't like.
Britain enters Afghanistan to attack Al Qaeda bases and kill Bin Laden.
Twenty years later Britain is in Afghanistan in order to let Afghans to migrate unvetted to Britain.
NEW THREAD
If ever we needed evidence that Labour haven't got a clue how to run the economy this is it. In fairly benign conditions, with no substantial external factors they've let inflation go up from 2.2% when they took over in July to 3.6% last month and still rising. They've caused this, not global conditions, not the previous government, they did. The Tories need to absolutely destroy them on inflation, they actually did the hard work and got inflation back down to acceptable levels, Labour have completely thrown that away.