Pets not parties expose the PM’s moral failings

The day the Prime Minister is alleged to have sanctioned the pet rescue from Kabul, Dougie, had he lived, would have turned 15 and been showered with all the usual birthday treats a cat of his standing deserved.

Instead, all I have of him are his ashes in a precious box under my bed and frequent reminders on my mobile of his happy life, which ended so suddenly, of natural causes, in January last year.

I share this trivial (though not to me) tale to demonstrate that my devotion to animals is as great as anyone else’s in this country and my judgement wobbly when a cat — or a dog (some breeds only) — enters the picture.

But even the craziest cat (or dog) lover would surely concede that the furore over the evacuation of animals from Afghanistan is an embarrassment to Britain.

It may also be what finally does for Boris Johnson, whose denial that he authorised the airlift of 170 dogs and cats as thousands of people were trying to flee the Taliban stretches credulity.

“We’ve always prioritised people over animals,” said the PM’s official spokesman, as if it needed to be clarified.

In Wales on Thursday, Johnson dismissed the story as “total rhubarb”, a choice phrase from the man who once came up with “inverted pyramid of piffle” to refute charges of an extramarital affair that eventually proved to be accurate.

Whether we take him at his word or not, the email trail emerging over the past few days provides a compellingly plausible narrative. 

Back in August, his parliamentary private secretary, Trudy Harrison, lobbied airlines to secure a plane for former Royal Marine Paul “Pen” Farthing’s animal charity Nowzad because “the boss” was keen to ensure that the animals got out of the country quickly.

That was just days before the government gave the go-ahead for the animals’ flight. Leaks from Foreign Office whistleblower Raphael Marshall claimed that the pets were evacuated following direct instruction from the Prime Minister.

Number 10 said officials had made up Johnson’s approval, but would his aides really go to all that trouble at the height of the chaos at Kabul airport if not told to do so?

There is also the matter of Johnson’s personal connection to Pen Farthing, whose campaign chief, Dominic Dyer, is a friend of Carrie Johnson. Was there pressure at home to save the pets, as Dyer suggested?

If it turns out that the Nowzad escape was in fact a Number 10 operation, this will be a far greater scandal than the Covid-breaking cocktail party culture that prevailed in the PM’s office.

As the pet story was unfolding five months ago, there was much public sympathy for Farthing. At the same time, the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, who was leading the evacuation, was portrayed as the villain.

Celebrity backing for Farthing came from the likes of comedian Ricky Gervais, an “animal lover” (see above), who tweeted expletive fuelled barbs at critics of the “brave and kind” ex-Marine. Some of Gervais’s unhinged Twitter followers agreed that “animal lives are just as important as human lives”.

Wallace, meanwhile, was forced to deny that he tried to stop the moggies and mutts making good their escape from the Taliban, then defend his decision to prioritise fleeing Afghan refugees and British citizens. All this during “one of the most dangerous and challenging evacuations for a generation”.

His frustration later turned to fury over the way his team had been treated by Farthing’s supporters.

“The bullying, falsehoods and threatening behaviour by some towards our MoD personnel and advisors is unacceptable and a shameful way to treat people trying to help the evacuation. They do their cause no good,” he tweeted, shortly before his fears of a terrorist attack at the airport were realised, with a blast that killed 13 US servicemen and 60 Afghans.

Wallace this week tried to defend Johnson but his anger over Farthing appeared unabated as he hit out at the “false claims made throughout by Nowzad that led to considerable distress and distraction to those trying to save lives in very difficult circumstances”.

Farthing was the master of propaganda, threatening to put his dogs to sleep at the airport during the stand-off with the MoD. His tactics worked, and Nowzad’s staff were subsequently granted visas for the UK and, with pets, assisted to cross into Pakistan, according to Raphael Marshall’s testimony to the Commons foreign affairs committee.

But the animals were not at risk – an American animal charity is apparently still operating in Kabul – and it is quite possible that more endangered Afghan people could have been liberated if limited military resources had not been squandered escorting the pets through the crowds and into the airport.

“There was a direct trade-off between transporting Nowzad’s animals and evacuating British nationals and Afghan evacuees, including Afghans who had served with British soldiers,” said Marshall.

Far from “fussing about a few animals”, as Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg put it, the Nowzad saga best reflects the moral gulf at the heart of Number 10.

Against a backdrop of humanitarian misery and imminent danger to men, women and children, diverting any efforts to save some pets was deranged, and those ultimately responsible must be held to account.