Inside Politics: Boris Johnson to plead with Joe Biden for more time in Afghanistan

Donald Trump is back and rewriting history – raging against “total surrender” in Afghanistan. “This would have never happened if I was president!” he told a rally in Alabama. Boris Johnson is said to have told aides “only half-jokingly” that it would’ve been better if Trump had won (a claim denied by No 10). Whatever he think of Joe Biden, the PM is ready to plead with the president to push the evacuation past the end of the month.

Inside the bubble

Political correspondent Ashley Cowburn on what to look out for today:

Junior defence minister James Healey will be out defending the government over Afghanistan. Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds is making a speech on welfare in Manchester at 11am. He wants to “make work pay” by changing universal credit payments.

Daily briefing

SAY IT CAN BE SO, JOE: Will Joe Biden listen to Boris Johnson? The PM is expected to push the president to keep US forces in Afghanistan past 31 August to allow more evacuation flights when he chairs a G7 meeting on Tuesday. Labour leader Keir Starmer has urged Johnson to explain exactly what he has done to secure an extension. UK ministers have already asked the Americans about getting more time, foreign office minister James Cleverly confirmed on Sunday. Biden has said he would consider moving the deadline, but added: “Our hope is we will not have to.” It comes as No 10 denied weekend claims that Johnson “only half-jokingly” told aides it would have been better if Trump had won a second term. Meanwhile, British evacuation efforts are picking up pace after 1,700 people were airlifted on Saturday. Another 731 were set to fly out on Sunday.

FRIDAY THE 13TH: Dominic Raab isn’t out of the woods yet. He was reportedly told by Downing Street officials to return from his holiday on Friday 13 August – two days before his cut his beach holiday short. He agreed with Boris Johnson he could get another couple of days in the Crete sunshine, according to the Sunday Times. “He seems to have nobbled Boris after he was told to come back,” said one source. Labour said it was “staggering” and the SNP said it was “impossible” for Raab to stay on, after his “pina coladas by the pool” in defiance of official advice. But stay on Raab will, however unpopular. An Opinium poll found that just 23 per cent approve of the job the foreign secretary is doing (with 41 per cent disapproving). It also emerged Lord Ahmad – a foreign office minister whose responsibilities include Afghanistan – was on staycation until the Sunday that Kabul fell.

BLAIR WISH PROJECT: Tony Blair thinks Joe Biden is a “good man” who has done a bad thing. The former Labour PM said the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was “imbecilic” decision, branding it “tragic, dangerous and unnecessary”. The man who orders British troops into the country insisted that it had been a “good cause” that “matters today”, allowing a generation to grow up without Taliban rule. Writing on his own website, Blair said he hoped Britain can now “give sanctuary to those to whom we have responsibility – those Afghans who helped us and stood by us”. It comes as a child protection charity linked to Blair and his family is investigated by the Charity Commission, amid fraud allegations. Miss Dorothy.com received huge sums in public funding but did not pay cash due to go to families who were victims of crime, according to The Times. Blair’s daughter Kathryn was chairwoman until 2017.

OFF THE RAILS: Some “red wall” Tory MPs are jubilant over the apparent demise of the last bit of the HS2 project – the “white elephant” high-speed rail project that public spending critics love to hate. The eastern leg to Leeds may be scrapped, according to The Mirror. An anonymous government source said ditching it would save £40bn. “There’s no way we’re going to see this built in our lifetimes.” Alexander Stafford, Tory MP for the Rother Valley, is pleased. He wants “transport infrastructure that might actually bring a tangible benefit to seats like mine”. Meanwhile, ten Tory MPs are calling for an investigation into Stop Funding Hate – the campaign group behind an advertising boycott of GB News – claiming the group advocates “cancel culture”. They wrote to the business secretary asking that the group has its Community Interest Company (CIC) status … cancelled. The irony.

WORTH THE PAPER IT’S WRITTEN ON: Labour wants to put an end to dodgy PPE contracts. Shadow international trade secretary Emily Thornberry has written to the health secretary Sajid Javid – urging him to make sure a new £5bn contract for NHS protective equipment is not awarded to companies involved in forced labour in China’s Xinjiang region. “You have little over a week to decide how you will tackle the issue of forced labour,” Thornberry wrote (contract tenders close at the end of August). Meanwhile … cheap wine! The government said at the weekend that “good progress” is being made in efforts to secure a free trade deal with New Zealand. Trade secretary Liz Truss is working to finalise an agreement “in the coming weeks” that could make win a bottle of vino up to 20p cheaper. Who said Brexit was a bad idea?

LACKEYS? US? The deal between the SNP and the Scottish Greens in Scotland will “fall apart” if either side make impossible requests of the other, the Greens’ co-leader Patrick Harvie has said. Harvie denied Labour’s claims the Greens will be “lackeys”. He said: “If there’s trust building and if both sides work in the spirit of this agreement … then it’s going to be extremely successful.” The SNP’s national executive committee approved the power-sharing agreement at the weekend, while Scottish Green Party members will vote on it next Saturday. The deal aims to see another vote on independence before the end of 2024. But the SNP’s former deputy leader Jim Sillars has a warning for Nicola Sturgeon. He said the constant attacks on Westminster are damaging the independence campaign – urging her to move away from the “manufactured grudge and grievance” agenda.

On the record

“I’ve enormous respect for Joe Biden, I’ve known him for many years – he is a good man and he’s a decent man.”

Tony Blair smothers his anger at the US president in praise.

From the Twitterati

Jess Brammar is a fantastic journalist who deserves every success, and that Mail on Sunday hatchet job is absolutely disgusting.

Jonn Elledge didn’t like the Mail’s piece on BBC’s new ‘left-winger’ executive news editor Jess Brammar…

“Just a reminder that the director-general of the BBC Tim Davie stood as a Conservative Party candidate and also served as deputy chair of his local Conservative Party. BBC chair Richard Sharp previously worked for both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.”

…and neither did Labour’s Angela Rayner.

Essential reading

Kerry Garcia, The Independent: EU settlement scheme remains full of labyrinthine complexity

Nick Thomas-Symonds, The Independent: The government’s negligence over Afghanistan is obvious

Andrew Rawnsley, The Guardian: Boris Johnson’s Global Britain is impotent and friendless

Katrina Forrester, New Statesman: The rise and fall of digital Corbynism

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