Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[garbon]

"Oh no! ... Anyway ..."

So WAD?

[Sheilbh]

Tape has leaked of a rehearsal of the PM's (partisan) spokesman when there were plans for them to do a daily briefing like in the US. Those plans didn't materialise, but in the rehearsal Downing Street staff were joking about a Christmas party - I suspect this takes the story to another level:
https://www.itv.com/news/2021-12-07/no-10-staff-joke-in-leaked-recording-about-christmas-party-they-later-denied

Edit: Also on the Afghanistan evidence, FCDO civil servants (and retired diplomats) fully briefing against him now "I see a very junior, very inexperienced individual attempting to make a strategic commentary based on his tactical experience, and exposing his limited understanding in the process. I would be wary of ascribing much to his comments." And "there is a danger of taking one person's very limited situational perspective, and assuming this was the operation in its entirety." And apparently lessons have been identified and learned. Maybe that's true - but I'd say it's probably the standard response of the FCDO or MOD to any criticism they've received in the last 20 years or so, a period which hasn't been great for either.

Senior FCDO civil servants are giving evidence now - and the thing that is striking given the comments above - is that they seem to be alternating between very soothing generalisations "lessons have been learned" etc and assuring everyone that they were benignly ignorant when asked more specific questions.

[Tamas]

I think we as a country have let go of Dog Gate too easily so I hope it gains some second traction now. That was an utterly shameful, and incredibly racist incident, that while thousands of Afghans were waiting to be saved from death, a bunch of stray dogs were chosen over them. And I don't care who sponsored the plane.

[Sheilbh]

I think we as a country have let go of Dog Gate too easily so I hope it gains some second traction now. That was an utterly shameful, and incredibly racist incident, that while thousands of Afghans were waiting to be saved from death, a bunch of stray dogs were chosen over them. And I don't care who sponsored the plane.

We as a country wanted to save the dogs (if memory serves me) - that's the real shame.

[Tamas]

I think we as a country have let go of Dog Gate too easily so I hope it gains some second traction now. That was an utterly shameful, and incredibly racist incident, that while thousands of Afghans were waiting to be saved from death, a bunch of stray dogs were chosen over them. And I don't care who sponsored the plane.

We as a country wanted to save the dogs (if memory serves me) - that's the real shame.

Indeed.

[The Brain]

Yeah it's not like the dog plane had to wrestle with privately chartered planes sent there to help humans, as I understand it. Or did it? I honestly don't know.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah it's not like the dog plane had to wrestle with privately chartered planes sent there to help humans, as I understand it. Or did it? I honestly don't know.

It was a privately chartered plan from some big donations - but still taking up time, space etc when they wasn't much to spare

Edit: Meanwhile Downing Street denied that they were involved in deciding to save the dogs. So an ITV journalist (they're having a very good day) had a letter from Johnson's PPS (bag-carrier) to Pen Farthing telling him they would be evacuated. And now Downing Street are dumping on the PPS (they're the lowest level of payroll votes so when you're shafting them it's pretty bad):

Henry Zeffman
@hzeffman
Downing Street have just responded to top @theousherwood scoop: "This was an operational decision. Neither the PM nor Mrs Johnson were involved. This letter was nothing to do with Ms Harrison's role as the PM's PPS, she was acting in her capacity as a constituency MP."

[Josquius]

I don't object to saving the dogs. But it's not like they would have been on the talibans hit list. Flying them out could have waited.

[Tamas]

I don't object to saving the dogs. But it's not like they would have been on the talibans hit list. Flying them out could have waited.

Yeah. It was a plane landing amidst people fleeing for their life and instead of loading the plane with those people it was loaded with dogs. That's all there is to it. A planeload of people are in prison or in a grave somewhere so, as you said, a bunch of dogs could be flown out. I still have trouble wrapping my mind around such warped thinking.

[Sheilbh]

I don't object to saving the dogs. But it's not like they would have been on the talibans hit list. Flying them out could have waited.

Yeah. It was a plane landing amidst people fleeing for their life and instead of loading the plane with those people it was loaded with dogs. That's all there is to it. A planeload of people are in prison or in a grave somewhere so, as you said, a bunch of dogs could be flown out. I still have trouble wrapping my mind around such warped thinking.

Yes - and as Alex Massie put it if, as the government say, their focus was on getting as many people on planes as possible, you have to ask how it was so many cats and dogs got seats.

Separately Rob Hutton's sketch captures a bit of the way today's gone:

Where following Boris leads you
Going viral with Allegra
By
Robert Hutton
7 December, 2021

Who could have foreseen this, eh? Who could have imagined that, after seven days of insisting that there hadn't been a lockdown-busting party in Downing Street last Christmas, a video would emerge from last Christmas of Downing Street officials joking about their lockdown-busting party?

Or who could have imagined that, just hours after the prime minister's spokesman emphatically denied that he'd intervened in August's evacuation of Kabul to make sure that we didn't forget to rescue the dogs, a letter would emerge revealing he'd done exactly that?

Who, in general, could have thought Boris Johnson's government would turn out this way? If only there had been some clue from earlier stages of his career that he wasn't always 100% truthful, eh?

Tuesday saw an evening of bombshells after a day of what is now fairly standard obfuscation and deceit from the government. We woke to learn that a young fast-stream diplomat had quit the Foreign Office in disgust over the chaos of the Afghan withdrawal, submitting a 40-page witness statement to Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee that was by turns damning and heartbreaking, with tales of understaffing, a lack of volunteers, and desperate phone calls telling people that it might not be possible to help them.

But Dominic Raab, who has become a sort of all-purpose government punchbag, toured the studios to assure us that things had been just fine. Or not fine, but, you know, not so bad as all that. After all, it was true that tens of thousands of people had been left behind and some of them had probably been killed, but, on the positive side of the ledger, 15,000 people had been rescued, as well as some dogs. Sure, there were lessons to be learned, but he couldn't think of any off the top of his head.

If it sounded unimpressive, we realised later that it was the official Foreign Office position. The permanent under-secretary, Sir Philip Barton, Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George, Officer of the Order of the British Empire, popped up to give evidence to the committee.

There are dramatic committee hearings, such as Rupert Murdoch's appearance in 2011, and there are defiant ones, such as Bob Diamond's the following year. Barton's was neither of these. Instead he was bland. A bald, bespectacled man in a grey suit with a tie the colour of wet sand, he seemed determined to be unmemorable. The fury of the questions he was facing might have given his blandness a defiant quality, but it didn't. It just sounded as though he really didn't understand why everyone was getting so fussed about a bunch of foreigners.

He couldn't tell the committee much, because he'd actually been on a break through almost all of the crisis, much of it for the same time as Raab. It turns out the Foreign Office puts less effort into coordinating its holiday rota than a provincial weekly newspaper.

He was, however, prepared to admit that this had been an error. "I have reflected a lot since August," he said. "And if I had my time again I would come back earlier."

He was so pleased with this line that he kept saying it until the chairman, Tom Tugendhat, told him to stop: "It sounds less credible every time you repeat it."

Barton's insisted that his absence probably hadn't made any difference, and this, at least, was plausible. He predecessors carved up Africa, drew lines in the sand, plotted secret deals over the Suez Canal. Barton by contrast came across as The Man Who Wasn't There. Which, indeed, he hadn't been.

This Sketch was going to be about Barton, who among many other things couldn't explain why there'd been an airlift for dogs when there were still stranded humans, but then ITV released The Video.

So let us turn to The Party That Didn't Happen. There is something fitting about Boris Johnson spending millions on a media suite only for its most significant moment to be catching him in a lie. It's perfect that it happened during a rehearsal for the televised press conference that his Team Of Geniuses were convinced would Expose The Media. And given the amount of taxpayer money the government has spent on vanity photographers and vanity film crews, it's especially pleasing that they have finally given us a completely authentic viral video.

"What's the answer?" spokeswoman Allegra Stratton asked, as they discussed how they should explain away the party they'd held four days earlier. "It wasn't a party, it was cheese and wine," someone suggested. "Is cheese and wine alright?" Stratton asked, doubtfully. As it turned out, her replacement as spokesman would simply lie. So much easier.

There is a lot going on in that minute of footage. The guilty shared knowledge that they had broken the rules. The astonishing ignorance from the actual prime minister's actual spokeswoman about what the rules were. The laughter, at a time when some people were dying and a lot of others were desperate. It is very hard to see how anyone in that room can keep their job.

Maybe they will. Maybe the people who attended the party will hold a press conference in the Downing Street garden explaining they were only doing what any sexed-up twentysomethings would do, while Matt Hancock tweets a supportive message: "I know how horny lockdown makes you. They were entirely right to get off their tits and head for the mistletoe."

But let us go back to the Foreign Affairs Committee where, eventually, Tugendhat ran out of patience with Barton's explanation that he couldn't have made a difference if he'd come to work. He didn't erupt. He was calm, and matter of fact, explaining something that Britain's most senior diplomat really ought to have known.

"Leadership matters," he said. "It's not just about the difference that a leader can make in terms of tactical command, but about the strategic intent that it demonstrates for an organisation, and the seriousness with which an organisation pursues its function."

This is the point. If the Foreign Secretary and his chief civil servant stay on holiday when Afghanistan is collapsing, why would more junior diplomats volunteer for night shift? When the prime minister is Boris Johnson, who is surprised to learn that staff in Number 10 decided they could ignore the rules they'd set for everyone else?

Leadership matters. Who could have foreseen that?

Edit: And Guardian and Mail are both leading on that leaked video ("A SICK JOKE" as the Mail puts it, understated as ever). Amazingly given that he's no longer a minister Gavin Williamson has also somehow managed to blow himself up as it's emerged that he hosted a Christmas party at the DfE last year too

[garbon]

[Sheilbh]

From the Whitehall Editor of the Daily Telegraph

Harry Yorke
@HarryYorke1
A source gets in touch: "we're f*****".

Not clear which story they're worried about yet.

Edit: Also a clip from that Foreign Affairs Select Committee hearing with Chris Bryant:
https://twitter.com/hoffman_noa/status/1468280226660630530?s=20

[The Larch]

A less polite country would have already pulled out the torches and pitchforks.

[Tamas]

I think somebody high up at the The Sun was at the Christmas party, they seem to be the only paper not front-paging it:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/08/a-sick-joke-what-the-papers-say-about-the-no-10-christmas-party-video

[Sheilbh]

Harry Cole, their Political Editor, was dating Carrie Johnson - until Boris swooped in. He's very close to them both - and Cummings said there were lobby journalists there who were trying to kill the story. Cole's Twitter also doesn't seem to talk about it much which seems odd given his job and the scale of the story.

No ministers on breakfast TV this morning - who were empty seated instead:
https://twitter.com/TVRav/status/1468507310666432515?s=20

When all the ministers are refusing to do media that's a bad sign. My guess is they basically don't trust the line they're getting from Number 10 and don't want to be tarnished. Tory MPs being publicly furious - pointing out that misleading the House is a resigning matter, when it was suggested that the Chief of Staff should go saying "the buck stops at the top" etc.

Edit: And rumours were that Downing Street might be doing a press conference this week on new restrictions (probably encouraging people to WFH) - but I, and this is the probem with them not following the rules, cannot see how they can credibly set out new restrictions at the minute even if that's necessary/important for public health.

Edit: Apparently the only MP willing to defend the government to the media is Matt Hancock - as Sam Freedman noted if we could somehow harness Hancock's shameless ambition we could solve the energy crisis.