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Hello and welcome to you, Coffeehouse Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.

I'm Isabel Hardman and I'm joined by Fraser Nelson and Katie Balls.

Well, the Taliban have been issuing a number of statements about how they plan to rule now that they have taken control of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Fraser, what have they been saying and how much credence should we actually put by these statements?

Well, it's a very interesting situation now.

We've had Vice Admiral Sir Ben Kaye, who's, they said, running operations in the evacuation

effort, admitting that the Taliban are now in charge.

So there are something like 900 British trips, 3,000 dual nationals, 6,000 others who

were trying to get out there. And we now do so at the

convenience of a Taliban. This is the way it works. Interestingly, there don't seem to be any

indications at all that the Taliban are seeking to frustrate the evacuation efforts, nor are they

going after any of their enemies. Now, that's very different to what happened

in Basra, for example, where the revenge killing started almost immediately. So it looks as if the Taliban,

or certainly the elders who have taken them, have taken Kabul, intend to put on a good face for

the international community, to reassure various Afghans to try to consolidate

their hold in the country. So it might not be as much of an emergency as it looks right now,

because I don't think it's going to be, the comparison to Saigon is overdone in this respect.

As far as we can see, there's no reason why the Taliban wouldn't give people as much time

as they want to actually leave. The problem why the Taliban wouldn't give people as much time as they want

to actually leave. The problem is the documents, of course. If you want to leave with a visa, leave with

a passport, good luck to you getting any kind of documentation from the now Taliban-run Afghan government.

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