Parliament was recalled from its summer break this week as MPs met to debate how to respond to the crisis in Afghanistan.

The West could not continue this US-led mission.

A mission conceived and executed in support and defence of America without American logistics, without US air power and without American might.

Welcome to Payne's Politics, your central insider guide to British politics from the Financial Times, with me Sebastian Payne.

In our fourth summer interview special, I'm delighted to be joined by Samalkumifkind, the former Conservative Defence and Foreign Secretary.

In a week when the Taliban shocked the West with its rapid advance of Afghanistan, we'll be examining where this leaves UK foreign policy.

What does it mean for the so-called special relationship and what does it mean for the future of foreign interventions?

Samalkum, welcome to Payne's Politics.

Thank you very much.

So, obviously, within the August period, Parliament has been recalled this week and we saw a very feisty debate.

How much of it did you catch and what did you make of the contributions to MP on this very pressing issue of how the UK's ended up in this situation of being forced out of Afghanistan much quicker in a way.

It didn't really want to have to leave.

Well, I wasn't able to watch all of it, but it seems to have been a very somber occasion, not surprisingly.

And that's often when the House of Commons is at its best, when there are real issues, everyone knows that something very bad has happened.

And you get members of Parliament speaking very much from the heart.

Tom Tuginhead, in particular, appears to have moved the House of Commons, and very unsurprisingly, because he has both a military background

and strong good knowledge of foreign policy.

Now, if we look at what's happened over the past week, that we know the US forces were going to withdraw themselves from Afghanistan by the end of August,

and it's not a decision that the UK has been particularly happy with because we've heard from the Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who's made it quite clear that, in fact, the UK explored every other alternative.

Do you think there was ever realistically any alternative?

Because in that House of Commons debate, lots of MPs have decried how we've abandoned Afghanistan, how we have not secured the gains that were made over the past 20 years.

But really, I'm still not quite clear what the alternative could have been.

...