Raab ‘got hol boost from PM’
BORIS Johnson gave Dominic Raab permission to stay on holiday for two extra days as Kabul fell to the Taliban, it was claimed last night.
The Foreign Secretary was said to have been told by a senior
No10 official to come back from his Crete holiday on August 13.
But according to reports, Mr Raab “nobbled” the Prime Minister – who agreed that he could stay at the luxury beach resort until Sunday evening.
A senior Government official claimed: “Raab was told to come back on Friday.
“On Sunday there was a sense of disbelief among everyone at the most senior levels in No 10 that he wasn’t there. He seems to have nobbled Boris after he was told to come back.”
Paddleboarding
The claim comes after a chaotic week in which Mr Raab was slammed for enjoying a luxury sunshine break while the Taliban seized Afghanistan’s capital.
Foreign Office officials had urged Mr Raab to speak to Afghan foreign minister Hanif Atmar to ask for help in the desperate scramble to evacuate interpreters last Friday, as the hardline Islamic forces took control.
But Mr Raab was said to be “unavailable” in his lavish hotel – where witnesses reported seeing him on the beach paddleboarding and sunbathing.
Mr Raab defended his decision to delegate the call to junior minister Lord Goldsmith, saying he was “prioritising security and capacity at the airport”.
The Foreign Secretary returned to the UK to begin dealing with the unfolding debacle on Monday.
He insisted he had been “talking to foreign counterparts” while out of the country, as well as taking part in emergency Government Cobra meetings remotely and dealing with his team in London on an “hour-by-hour basis”.
But Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy called for him to resign or be axed over his “catastrophic failure of judgement”.