Boris Johnson will never sack ministers for being tawdry, lazy and incapable of doing their jobs — if he did, he would have to sack himself. Nevertheless, the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee’s investigation into the Foreign Office’s complicity in the Afghanistan catastrophe showed the consequences of the collapse in standards in ministerial competence better than any public inquiry I have seen.
The autopsy was all the bloodier because Tom Tugendhat, who should be foreign secretary, was asking the questions, and Dominic Rabb, who really shouldn’t be foreign secretary, was ducking them. Raab’s demonstration of what he did not know was almost awe-inspiring. Did he, for example, know how many ministers were overseas right now?
Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t. Raab wouldn’t say for security reasons. His reply sounded convincing in a ‘your question threatens the very fabric of the nation’ manner until Tugendhat asked when was the last time a foreign minister visited Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Afghanistan’s northern neighbours.
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