Even the Daily Mail is now calling out Boris Johnson’s serial lying


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Ministerial officials said that the prime minister “authorised” for a charity and its animals to be evacuated from Afghanistan despite Boris Johnson calling suggestions he intervened “complete nonsense”.

In written evidence published by the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, an official working in lord Goldsmith’s office said the “PM has just authorised” Nowzad “staff and animals to be evacuated”.

Johnson, asked by reporters on 7 December if he had intervened in the evacuation last summer, called the suggestion “complete nonsense”.

Even the Daily Mail was unequivocal in its assessment of Johnson, and clearly thinks Johnson is a serial liar:

 

“Lying”

Labour has accused the Prime Minister of “lying” over the incident, and reiterated its call for him to resign, with his government also dogged by the partygate controversy.

Former Royal Marine Paul “Pen” Farthing, who ran the Nowzad shelter, launched a high-profile campaign to get his staff and animals out of Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul, using a plane funded through donations.

The UK government sponsored clearance for the charter flight, leading to allegations that animals had been prioritised over people in the rescue effort.

Pen Farthing, founder of animal rescue charity Nowzad
Pen Farthing, founder of animal rescue charity Nowzad (Nowzad/PA)

Evidence

The evidence published on 26 January shows lord Goldsmith’s official in the Foreign Office emailed colleagues working on the “special cases team Bronze”, saying that other animal welfare charities were looking for assistance after Nowzad had been approved for evacuation.

The official in the minister’s private office wrote on 25 August:

[animal charity – name redacted] are a [details redacted] animal charity operating in Kabul and seeking to evacuation their [details redacted] members of staff (no animals).

Equivalent charity Nowzad, run by an ex-Royal Marine, has received a lot of publicity and the PM has just authorised their staff and animals to be evacuated, [animal charity – name redacted] are hoping to be treated in the same capacity.

The evidence was submitted to the committee by Raphael Marshall, who worked for the Foreign Office at the time and has claimed that the animals were evacuated following a direct instruction from Mr Johnson.

Deputy political editor of the Telegraph Lucy Fisher said it was “difficult to see how this can be explained away”:

Downing Street attempted to distance Johnson from involvement in the decision on evacuating the Nowzad animals, when asked about the claims on 26 January.

The Prime Minister has been accused of helping animals before people in the Nowzad evacuation
The Prime Minister has been accused of helping animals before people in the Nowzad evacuation (LPhot Ben Shread/MoD/PA)

The PM’s official spokesperson said:

It remains the case that the PM didn’t instruct officials to take any particular course of action.

But Dominic Dyer, who led the political lobbying campaign from the UK for Nowzad to be evacuated, said the prime minister’s refusal to acknowledge his role in the evacuation had “tarnished” the campaign.

Dyer said the emails published by the committee “vindicated” what he had previously said and argued Johnson could be “very proud of giving support to this as a humanitarian rescue mission”.

He told PA news agency:

I’m not certain why he didn’t feel he could explain his involvement in August at the end of this operation.

I don’t know why, and I don’t know why this was allowed to turn into such a big political football, for the Ministry of Defence to fall out with the Foreign Office and for Downing Street to say it had no role in it.

It has tarnished what has been a very important operation that had huge public support, and I think that’s a sad indictment of our political system at the moment, which the Prime Minister presides over to be quite frank.

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  • Show Comments

    1. The spin problem would not have been about helping an animal charity – awwww <3 – but about the total lack of interest in humans facing much the same fate, whose main problem was they were born brown and in Afghanistan rather than as dogs and in Afghanistan. Many of whom included BA interpreters and their families, who were 'left to their fate' much as Iraqi interpreters had been earlier. There were also aid workers, and NGO workers. At the last post, they were counted as less than dogs to the UK Establishment. While that's TRUE, it's also not good PR.

      Funnily enough, this split will be used by the corporate media – pro-BloJo outlets will emphasise the aw-shucks-puppies; anti-BloJo probaby about his lying.

      Only Indies will mention what this looks like to Afghans. After all, do we REALLY care about the opinions of people we are currently mass starving in the middle of a brutal winter?

      BTW, isn't it a bit funny that the centrist establishment turn up him so savagely when the 3 possible Tory replacements are SLAVERING to "go to war" – as badly as the German Green leadership? Coincidence? Lol.

      When even Boris isn't bad, nincompoopish and cartoon villiainish enough, it's seriously time that a country's wise folk take a long hard look at the constitution. While we're still able to.

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