Who authorised Pen Farthing's animal rescue operation?

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

News, Politics, Government, Daily News

4.4 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 27 January 2022

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Whilst everyone waits for the Sue Gray report, all eyes turn to the next scandal: Pen Farthing's animal rescue operation out of Afghanistan. It has been revealed that Boris Johnson's parliamentary private secretary, Trudy Harrison contacted a jet hire company in an attempt to secure a plane to evacuate the pets. The PM has responded to these allegations saying they are 'total rhubarb' - but what does that mean?

'You don’t seem to get the impression that Downing Street feels as if they are under pressure about this' - Katy Balls

Also on the podcast, is Boris Johnson planning a shake-up of his staff at No.10? And if so, who might go? Martin Reynolds? Dan Rosenfield?

All to be discussed as Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This podcast is sponsored by Canacord Genuity Wealth Management, award-winning wealth managers who go above and beyond to support and guide you.
0:09.2	Visit can-dowealth.com to start building your wealth with confidence.
0:16.3	Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots and Spectators Daily Politics Podcast.
0:20.8	I'm Isva Harbin and I'm joined by Katie Balls and James Forsyth.
0:25.0	Well, while we're waiting for something to be published, we're not going to talk about
0:29.4	that something, we're going to talk about something else.
0:32.4	Yesterday, the Foreign Affairs Committee published some emails, one of which suggested that the Prime Minister
0:39.1	had indeed given personal authorisation for the evacuation from Kabul of animals and staff
0:46.7	from the Nowzad Animal Charity, something he had previously claimed he had not done. James,
0:53.8	the Prime Minister has responded to that, these emails
0:57.1	today. And what's he said? He said it's total rhubarb. Now, one isn't quite entirely sure what
1:04.6	rhubarb means in this context. I think it's designed to imply that it's total nonsense,
1:08.8	but without saying that it's total nonsense.
1:12.3	And I think this is quite tricky because there are these, there are these emails that came
1:18.2	out yesterday, there are more emails that people have flagged today, all suggesting that number 10,
1:23.7	you know, people were trying to find out what number 10 wanted to do about this.
1:27.0	There's also the fact that came out last night that the Prime Minister's PPS,
1:32.1	Trudy Harrison, was kind of getting in touch with airlines about this issue and talking about it with them.
1:38.1	She says she was acting as a constituency MP.
1:41.8	It is quite hard to see what her constituency interest is beyond various people
1:45.9	emailing her saying, why don't we get the animals out of Afghanistan? It's not like the kind of charity
1:50.2	was based in her constituents or anything else like that. And then further adding to the confusion
	...

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