on the bbc this morning and he said the prime minister absolutely was involved and he s been saying that for months, hasn t he? ..and he even said, i wish he would just say it, because i am really proud of what we did! he should be proud about helping to achieve this thing of getting these animals and the staff from the charity out of kabul. but it is the timing of it, it is awkward for number 10, even if you think it isjust a bit of a weird story or, asjacob rees mogg said in the chamber today, where he suggested it was a bit of fuss about some animals, well, not everybody sees it that way. mmm, quite. remember how desperate things were in kabuland how many people who were trying to get out could not get out, but it just comes at a time when lots of conservatives and members of the public are thinking about the prime minister s integrity, and then you get into this he said, she said, is he telling the truth? it isjust uncomfortable timing. which is the overlapping issue around all of
that we did in 2019, he said, yeah, you know, i was peripherally involved, as he termed it, but he actually admitted that he was sending proof of life e mails, e mails which i ve read now from the other side, from the families of the victims, he was sending proof of life e mails to families particularly in united states demanding ransoms from the family of one of the hostages. he was in touch with herfamily. her elderly parents in arizona, demanding that they pay or that they raise millions and millions of euros to pay a ransom in order to secure the release of their daughter. so, he admitted for the first time publicly that in our first interview. and he has since pleaded guilty, hasn t he? he has since pleaded guilty and admitted all charges in the united states.
kremlin. hasn t he already let me ask you this. it looks to me as if one of his goals is to weaken the nato alliance and weaken the united states alliances in europe. it s plainly obvious he succeeded there. look at germany and france, they would like to negotiate on their own with him. that s exactly what he s looking for. how is he not taking that and declaring victory? tragically, chuck, i agree with you. he s framed this crisis the way he wants to frame it, right? he framed this crisis about the alleged threat from nato expansion. by the way, the last major wave of nato expansion was 20 years ago. brussels was not talking about bringing ukraine into nato, the biden administration wasn t doing that. this was completely invented by putin and you re exactly right. what are we debating here in the united states? are we debating annexation as
but given where they are, - it probably makes more sense for the treasury to carry on. as clare said, although there - are some people in insecure work who are going to be hit by this, i the people who would gain most from cancelling it are the betterj off workers who pay a lot of this national insurance, because they earn a lot of the money. - but again, we keepl going back to things a question for you both about solutions. what levers are there for the government to pull if they choose, particularly if they accept, as you say, that they are going to stick with this? what can they do to mitigate the challenges that families are facing? i think there s going to have to be some quid pro quo. if the national insurance rise is going to go ahead, they must think about how they can help families with energy bills. i m surprised there hasn t been an announcement already, seeing as we re going to get the news of how much prices are going to go up so imminently.
and he was asked about it today on a trip to wales. did you authorise evacuating animals out of kabul? no! this whole thin- is total rhubarb. the military always prioritised human beings and that was quite right. the thing is that is not quite the issue, is it? no! the prioritisation is separate from was he in some way involved in that decision making chain? it is quite a bizarre story, this, and the reason it is problematic is notjust because no one quite knows who is telling the truth and one of the animal welfare campaigners was speaking again on the bbc this morning and he said the prime minister absolutely was involved and he s been saying that for months, hasn t he? ..and he even said, i wish he would just say it, because i am really proud of what we did! he should be proud about helping to achieve this thing of getting these animals and the staff from the charity out of kabul. but it is the timing of it, it is awkward for number 10, even if you think it isjust a bit of a weird