1 October 2021. We asked 6,238 European HGV drivers in motorway cafés throughout Poland, France, Germany and Spain:

“Will you be applying for an Ebenezer Visa?”

The visa would magnanimously allow EU truckers to rescue the UK from the supply chain mess it has created by leaving the Single Market and abolishing freedom of movement. The visa is granted on the strict understanding that if Stanislaus, Michel, Andreas and Carlos don’t “go home” by 24 December they will be forcibly removed.

A cautious examination of the results indicates that the UK is not the desirable work destination its government imagines it to be.

UPDATE: 2 October 2021. “Emergency visa scheme extended in major U-turn by Boris Johnson: Threat of Christmas being ruined by driver shortages forces ministers to expand range and duration of visas”

The man saunters into the post office. He stands opposite one of the counters, adjacent to the head of the queue. There are five people waiting, neatly spaced at two metre intervals.

He lets Bakery Lady go up with her takings while he pretends to look at his phone.

Post Office Lady spots him and says: d’you want the post office? the queue’s by there.

He widens his eyes, all exaggerated innocence: oooooh, didn’t realise, been waiting fifteen minutes, you don’t mind do you?

This last addressed to Translator Lady, who’s next in the queue. She bloody well does mind, but what can she do, because he’s already sidled in front of her, and he isn’t wearing a mask. But sweet Jesus, she has murder in her heart.

He stands there smugly, while waves of loathing roll towards him from Post Office Lady and the whole of the queue. King of the Castle, the Guy Everyone Frigging Hates.

It’s a long time ago now, so I’ll come clean. I was the one who went to the press.

To be frank, we were operating in chaos. Kabul had fallen in a day, the Taliban were putting crosses on doors, and Raab was sunning himself in Crete. Things weren’t much better once he got back. Those Johnson loyalists were bloody awful at the job.

The tipping point? The PM’s ghastly Thick of It walkabout at the Foreign Office. And of course the emails themselves.

A junior minister had asked me, almost as an aside, to “take a quick look” at the Operation Pitting account for MPs trying to evacuate Afghans. What greeted me was an entire week’s worth of unopened emails. Over FIVE THOUSAND of them! Just sitting there as the clock ticked down.

I’ve no regrets. I still feel a burning sense of shame for the lives we could have saved. There was a total moral vacuum at the heart of that government.

‘Revealed: Foreign Office ignored frantic pleas to help Afghans’ (28 Aug 2021): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/28/revealed-foreign-office-ignored-pleas-help-afghans-mps-evacuation

‘Boris Johnson and Dominic Raab blasted for cringe photo op at Afghanistan crisis centre’ (28 Aug 2021): https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-dominic-raab-blasted-24858600

MPs trying to rescue more than 7,000 people trapped in Afghanistan (31 Aug 2021): https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/aug/30/mps-trying-to-rescue-more-than-7000-people-trapped-in-afghanistan