this is bbc news. i'm ben brown. our headlines at five. a foreign office whistleblower says the government's evacuation operation in afghanistan was dysfunctional and chaotic. it comes as the head of the diplomatic service tells a committee of mps he regrets not coming back from holiday sooner when the crisis was unfolding. i have reflected a lot since august on my leave, and if i had my time again, i would've come back from my leave earlier. the uk reports its highest weekly number of new cases of covid—19 since january. 101 of those registered in the past 2a hours are of the omicron variant. after storm arwen, now it's storm barra that's battering parts of the uk with high winds and heavy rainfall. the government admits a series