Dominic Raab

Today’s Sunday Times cartoon.
For simple ineptitude the current Government ought to be awarded Oscars
Williamson - now schools may be told to defer the Autumn term by a week, Hancock (OK he’s gone now but once seen the memory is hard to unsee) - Hands, Face, Arse and Raab -don’t call me and I won’t call you.

MawBe at the end of last term we had one GC in Senior School and one due to start year 7 , AC were informed that the start of term this September would be staggered

It always used to be when I taught in Secondary schools.
Years 7 - 9 on the first day, 10 and 11 the next and Sixth Form the following week, allowing for Sixth Form interviews. But this sounds a bit less flexible.
The full opening of England’s secondary schools will be delayed by at least a week as head teachers call in millions of teenagers to be tested on site for Covid
Close contacts of children found to be infected will be traced and if they test positive they too will have to self-isolate
Whether or not it makes a difference, it sounds shambolic.

(And who is meant to be doing the testing I wonder? Hard-pressed teachers? )

I don't see what point there could have been in trying to get his opposite number in the Afghan government to do anything even if that person was answering the phone. They (the Afghan government) must all have known what was happening way before it all kicked off and been packed and had their exit transport all booked.

I don't know either how D Raab would have travelled home if he had abandoned his holiday. Would he have hired a limo with confidential wi-if connections and chartered a private jet so as to be able to stay in contact for the several hours it would take? Would the RAF have sent a helicopter to air lift him out? Perhaps it was more practical for him to have worked from where he was and stuck to his planned taxi and flight. Who knows.

I know he has knowledgeable people beavering away so he only has to stand up and spout his message, but it would have been politic and good PR for him to have rushed home although the media would probably have thought of an angle to criticise that.

NanKate I am told that protocol requires that Foreign Ministers speak to Foreign Ministers, so delegating it to a Junior Minister like Zac Goldsmith would have been regarded as a slight and would not actually have got through.
Much in Diplomacy is not just a matter of a matter of what you do, but how you go about doing it.

Sorry - wrong poster! ?NfkDumpling

I have been listening to Nick Abbot’s LBC show from last night. He calls Raab Deckchair Dom

Given the fact that we are still in a pandemic and have been advised NOT to go abroad, what was he doing trotting off to Crete in the first place? What if he had fallen sick (with covid) while there and was too ill to travel home when everything was falling apart? Imbicile, yes.

Whatdayisit

He is a bloody disgraceful little worm. His boss should have sacked him for not resigning. Weak self-serving twerps.

?????here! Here!

love0c

Lucca The whole point of my post has gone completely over your head. You think he should have been at home in England to make the call. That's fine but that was not what my post was really commenting on, was it.

Ok.

* For simple ineptitude the current Government ought to be awarded Oscars*
Yes indeed. Weasels and worms, possibly another word to complete the alliteration,

Definitely THE other word as well Lucca.

I wonder how many other professions could get away with the old 'nothing that I did would have made a difference' defence?

Its your job, you useless, flipping idiot

tippytipsy

When people's lives are depending on you doing your job properly, you pack up and come back from your holiday immediately. I have known a member of our family leave the campsite in France and fly home on the next flight for a far less serious issue at work. Raab is too arrogant, it is out of order to have him as our foreign secretary.

Exactly. I risked Covid, flying peak pandemic 1st wave, to administer oral exams at my overseas school last year. And I'm only a teacher. But it was my job and I took responsibility. I COULD have done it via Zoom, but...

Strikes me none of the whole bunch appreciates their position and the level of their responsibility. Government? Bunch of malingering, irresponsible, embezzling crooks.

Possibly Raab and Johnson being here wouldn't have made a difference, but they seem incapable of realising that being SEEN to be here is important. It's sort of part of the job.

It doesn't matter whether he could deal with the crisis from the depths of his beachside lounger or not, when a crisis like this happens the relevant minister needs to be seen to be taking charge and making the decisions, he needs to make himself and taking the actions himself.

When a huge humanitarian crisis like this occurs where we are a contributory cause, you do not yawn, reach for another cold drink and text someone down the line and tell them to make the call, having forgotten that they too are on holiday so that the text goes unread for a week or fortnight.

Supposing the Ambassador in kabul had taken the next plane out saying he had good staff he trusted and he would leave them to cope.

The desperately heart sinking side of this whole event is that it is clear that neither Raab or Johnson, could understand why being seen to step up and take charge was necessary.

Whatdayisit

He is a bloody disgraceful little worm. His boss should have sacked him for not resigning. Weak self-serving twerps.

Boris doesn't have the backbone to sack anyone.

Deedaa

Possibly Raab and Johnson being here wouldn't have made a difference, but they seem incapable of realising that being SEEN to be here is important. It's sort of part of the job.

Precisely. I await posts defending Raab’s actions.

they seem surprisingly absent. Cannot think why!

Knowing the unpleasantness it would cause by certain people, I guess others simply can't be bothered.

Jabberwok

Knowing the unpleasantness it would cause by certain people, I guess others simply can't be bothered.

And I knew that would be the response. “Too cool for school”. “Better things to do”. “Unpleasantness from certain posters”.

Do you defend Raab’s actions ? In which case please have the courage of your convictions.

Sarnia I don’t think it’s the case that Johnson doesn’t have ‘the backbone to sack anyone’.

I think that they are all protecting each other.

‘All in it together’, as it were.

Look how he protected the dim and vicious Patel.
‘Form a square around the Pritster’

Jabberwok

Knowing the unpleasantness it would cause by certain people, I guess others simply can't be bothered.

About sums it up

Lucca mind you, I find that it’s preferable to one, or several, of these damned things: ?

There hasn’t been any unpleasantness on this thread, has there ?
(Aside from that directed at the government)