I know Dom Raab. I believed in him. But now he has to go AMANDA PLATELL

There are times in the world of politics when you find it impossible to defend someone you believed in, someone you thought could make it to the top, even perhaps become Prime Minister.

That time has come for me, with Dominic raab.

The first time I met Dom, as he prefers to be called, was a few years ago. I found him articulate, polite, handsome (and he knew it) but perhaps a little too confident.

I liked him though and, being in the media, gave him tips on television appearances. I pointed out that he sweated too much under the TV lights and suggested make-up products he could use — advice he rather too eagerly accepted.

Fast forward to today and the Foreign Secretary has good reason to sweat after his cack-handed and callous mishandling of the Afghanistan crisis. even as an admirer of Dom, I can no longer in all conscience defend him.

As our troops might say, he was missing in action.

There have been days of obfuscation over why he did not return from his luxury family holiday in Crete while Kabul fell. Then muddying of the waters over the crucial phone call he was asked to make, but didn’t. (As the Mail revealed yesterday, no one at all made the call that could have helped rescue Afghan translators who served us so loyally.)

On top of this were the claims from his office that he was working flat out in Crete when he was actually flat out on a sunbed, topping up his tan while those to whom we owe safe passage were abandoned.

It says something about the man that Foreign Office colleagues accused him of ‘appalling negligence’, saying he had ‘completely checked out’ of his job a year ago, and read just a fifth of his daily red boxes.

Is he so arrogant that he thinks the job of Foreign Secretary is beneath him?

I used to think he was a decent, principled Conservative who could rise to the top. Now he’s at the bottom of the political heap with Labour rightly baying for his blood.

My advice would be: ‘Quit now, Dom.’ You had a duty to protect all those who fought side-by-side with our troops in Afghanistan, those for whom this newspaper has campaigned for years. And you failed.

Life will be worse for you if you stay — the suffering and possible torture and death of each translator caught by the Taliban will haunt you as you peruse your happy holiday snaps in Crete.

Much as it pains me to say it, do the decent thing, Dom. Take a deep breath — and walk the plank.