Markus Andrews

A tax rise in the form of a hike in national insurance is on the cards amid a cabinet split over how to pay for the government’s long-awaited social care reforms, according to reports.Sajid Javid has pushed for a two percent increase, saying the £10 billion raised from a mooted one percent rise is not enough, according to The Times.Meanwhile, the Treasury is seeking a 1.25 percent increase that would affect 25 million people according to the Daily Telegraph, which said an announcement could come as soon as next week.Any rise in national insurance is expected to face criticism as it is likely to disproportionately hit millions of younger people — and would be a clear breach of the 2019 Conservative election manifesto pledge on tax.Boris Johnson has faced increasing pressure to offer details on his plan for social care reform, which he said was ready when speaking on the steps of Downing Street in 2019.At the 2019 election, the Conservatives pledged in their manifesto not to raise the rate of income tax, VAT or national insurance.But the idea of increasing national insurance was floated earlier this year.When asked if there could be no national insurance hike, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told Sky News in July: “That’s what it says in the manifesto, I don’t see how we could increase national insurance.”But you know things have been very flexible over the last 18 months, we’ve lived through an unprecedented time, we’ve been spending huge amounts of money that we never thought was possible and it’s up to the Chancellor and the Treasury, and the wider Government, to decide a budget.”Mr Johnson, Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid are the three main players involved in the decision, it is reported. More

Priti Patel has announced that the Home Office is seeking advice on whether to criminalise the possession of laughing gas.In a move branded branded a “waste of time” by drug experts and “baffling” by one Tory MP, the government has asked the independent Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to review the harm caused by nitrous oxide.It comes just weeks after drug-related deaths were found to have hit an all-time high in England and Wales for the eighth consecutive year, most involving opiates, and follows the publication of a damning landmark review which concluded that England’s drug treatment system is currently “not fit for purpose”.The Home Office said it is acting following what it calls a “concerning” rise in nitrous oxide use among young people.Nitrous oxide is the second most-used drug among 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK, behind cannabis, with nearly 550,000 people in that age group reporting taking it in the latest annual crime survey by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). However, while up on 2013 levels, the proportion of young people in England and Wales using nitrous oxide has been the same for the past four years, according to ONS, sitting at 8.7 per cent at the last count.The sale of nitrous oxide for its psychoactive effects became illegal under the Psychoactive Substances Act in 2016, but it is not a crime to possess the drug. The government is reported to be concerned this is a “significant factor” in its use, and the home secretary said that “should the expert ACMD recommend further restrictions on this drug, we stand ready to take tough action”.But Adam Winstock, a consultant psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist, said criminalising possession of the drug “would likely lead to illicit sales” and would merely “add the risk of criminality to all”.“Asking for evidence is great but the ACMD advice comes framed by the current home secretary’s preconceived notion that a problem related to drug use can be successfully addressed by making something illegal,” said Prof Winstock, founder of the Global Drug Survey.“This is palpably and evidentially false. But making a drug with minimal risk to most users illegal will add the risk of criminality to all.”Nitrous oxide is “very safe” compared to other drugs, Prof Winstock said, with the risk of accidental harm low but increased when consumed with other substances. But he said the risk of nerve damage is “real and significant”, with a study on 16,000 users showing just over 3 per cent reported symptoms consistent with nerve damage.“That is a worry. But avoidable,” he said. “Smart education, not blunt regulation, is required.”When used recreationally, nitrous oxide is typically released into balloons from small silver canisters and inhaled, giving temporary feelings of relaxation and euphoria. It is also used medically as an anaesthetic, given for instance to women in labour.Prolonged use of nitrous oxide can cause vitamin B12 deficiency, anaemia and nerve damage, and the substance has been associated with 36 deaths between 2001 and 2016, according to the ONS. The ACMD last reviewed nitrous oxide six years ago, concluding it did not seem to warrant control under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.The advisory panel’s former chair, David Nutt, who was sacked in 2009 after saying that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol, called the move a “gimmick”.The Imperial College London professor said it is “completely symptomatic of the utterly blinkered perspective that this government has on drugs”, adding: “This is completely pointless, an utter distraction, this is pretence of doing something about drug problems, but focusing on a drug that has very, very little harm – way less harm than alcohol – and they should be investing their money on people who are dying of drugs like fentanyl and heroin.”Meanwhile, the government has since faced accusations of undermining the ACMD’s independence, with Professor Alex Stevens quitting the panel in protest in 2019 at the government’s “political vetting” of potential members.Prof Stevens cited several instances where a minister had allegedly blocked suitable applicants who had criticised the government on social media, including Niamh Eastwood, the executive director of drug charity Release. She had tweeted that a letter from minister Victoria Atkins rejecting the ACMD’s call for safer drug consumption rooms despite a climate of rising drug-related deaths was “utter BS”.Reacting to the Home Office’s request over nitrous oxide, Crispin Blunt, chair of the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group, said that “in the light of [recent drug death statistics] this request is a baffling use of the wretchedly limited resources of the ACMD”.“The already overstretched ACMD should be given proper resources to consider, for instance, the scheduling status of other substances which haven’t been evaluated in far longer than six years and which could significantly upgrade our ability to deal with the country’s worsening mental health crisis and overdose problem,” Mr Blunt said.Additional reporting by PA More

Boris Johnson has poured cold water on the chances of early Covidvaccinations for England’s teenagers, insisting that his priority going into the winter is to start a programme of booster jabs for the elderly this month.Cabinet ministers Sajid Javid and Gavin Williamson have been piling pressure on the government’s vaccination advisers to give the green light to jabs for 12-15 year-olds, with the education secretary declaring the NHS and schools were “ready and eager” to start the programme.But senior government sources rejected suggestions of frustration at the slow pace of decision-making by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), despite concern over a spike in Covid-19 driven by this week’s return to school by children in England.Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson warned of a “significant” surge in case as pupils went back into classrooms without the “bubbles” and mandatory face-masks which were in place during the spring term.Meanwhile, Liberal Democrats demanded the immediate installation of air purifiers in every classroom, after warnings that children may have to be taught outside this winter to get the ventilation needed to stem the spread of the disease.Lib Dem education spokesperson Daisy Cooper told The Independent that the government had so far funded ventilators in only 20 schools in a pilot scheme in Bradford, when a purifier for every classroom would cost only £140m.“This Government is happy to dish out £1.6 billion in dodgy PPE contracts for their cronies, but it’s refusing to stump up the cash for ventilators to keep our children safe and our schools open, said Ms Cooper.“Children will not learn if they’re hungry or cold, but after the  free school meals scandal and slashing catch-up funding, Gavin Williamson is – unbelievably – proposing that young children sit outside in the freezing cold to learn maths. Parents are rightly anxious about their children losing valuable time in the classroom, and they will simply not understand why, once again, the government is so slow to act. ”Official guidance released ahead of the start of term said schools should consider outdoor classes if five pupils or staff – or 10 per cent of the total – test positive in a 10-day period.The NASUWT teaching union warned against official “complacency” in the face of a possible rise in cases in schools.General secretary Patrick Roach said: .“We only need to look across the border to Scotland to see that there has been a steep increase in Covid cases among school-age pupils within just a couple of weeks.“In the event of rising case numbers, ministers will need to consider the reintroduction of the requirement for pupils to self-isolate when they have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive. This should be supported by an extended programme of on-site testing in schools, rather than relying on a less effective system of home testing.Mr Williamson said he would “move heaven and earth” to avoid shutting schools again, and did not rule out using outdoor lessons to ensure this.He said that both the health service and schools are  ready to deliver a programme of jabs for teenagers “at pace” as soon as the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations gives its approval for under-16s to receive the inoculation.A source close to the JCVI has indicated that the advisory panel was resisting intense pressure to give the go-ahead to teenage jabs because of concern about disrupting possible booster programmes for older people.Concern that immunity from early jabs last winter may now be waning was fuelled by a report from the London Medical Laboratory warning that antibody levels among over-70s is “tumbling”.Professor Tim Spector, lead scientist on the Zoe study and professor of genetic epidemiology at Kings College London, said that around 30 per cent of new Covid cases now involve fully-vaccinated people, adding: “We’ve seen evidence that the protection provided by vaccines is wearing off.”JCVI deputy chair Prof Anthony Harnden said it was “highly likely” that a booster programme for older people would be decided “over the next few weeks”.And Mr Johnson indicated that booster jabs will come first, responding to a question on when younger teenagers would start receiving the vaccine by saying: “The priorities now are the older generation going into autumn and winter. We’ve always said that there will be a booster programme in September – this month – and we’re going ahead with that.”Mr Williamson insisted there was no “either/or” decision between vaccinating teens and providing booster jabs, as capacity was available to do both. He said he was waiting “with bated breath” for the JCVI to give approval for 12-15 year-olds.School leaders had experience in organising vaccinations and had “systems of consent” in place to get approval from parents, he said, adding: “We’re ready – if we’re get the get-go from the JCVI, we’re ready.”Covid cases among under-18s in Scotland have skyrocketed since schools returned three weeks ago, reaching double their level at the height of the last peak.And Prof Ferguson said there were concerns over the end of the summer holidays having a similar impact in England, especially with the more transmissible and now-dominant Delta variant.If an unvaccinated population of 5 or 10 per cent all got Covid in a short period of time there would be “a large number of deaths” and the health service would be at risk of being “significantly overwhelmed”, said the epidemiologist, whose forecasts informed the government decision to impose the first lockdown in 2020.With widespread vaccination it was possible to keep hospitalisations and deaths to a level which the government regards as “acceptable” even with high case numbers, he said. But he added: “That only holds for so long.”Some 38,154 new cases and 178 deaths were recorded across the UK on Thursday, as the recent rise in cases linked to the 19 July reopening of society continued to show signs of levelling off.Responding to Lib Dem calls for air purifiers, a Department for Education spokesperson said: “Ventilation is just one measure we are advising schools to take, alongside on-site testing and increased hygiene, to strike the balance between keeping staff, students and families safe and minimising disruption to education.“Schools have clear guidance on how to maintain good ventilation and keep classes warm enough, and the 300,000 carbon dioxide monitors we are providing – backed by £25 million – will begin rolling out from next week, giving schools another tool in their arsenal to keep the virus out of classrooms.“There will be no lessons taking place outside in the rain, but clear and proportionate contingency measures are in place if schools do see an increase in cases.” More

The fall of Afghanistan is “only the beginning of a new stage of chaos” that could see the US and China drawn into conflict, a leading parliamentarian has warned.The chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Tom Tugendhat, said it was “absolutely predictable” that Taliban victory would lead to regional instability and the export of terrorism to countries including the UK.But he also warned that Beijing could see the display of American weakness as a moment when China should “flex its muscles” militarily, leading to the danger of confrontation in a flashpoint like Taiwan and the South China Sea.Mr Tugendhat, a former soldier who served in Afghanistan, told a seminar hosted by the Policy Exchange think tank that the US president, Joe Biden, would be wrong to believe that the withdrawal of the final American troops from the country meant the war was over.“This isn’t over,” said the MP. “This is only the beginning of a new stage of chaos.”Inside Afghanistan, the Taliban was already “turning on itself”, with signs of disunity between different parts of the movement raising the prospect of “chaos streaming over the border” into neighbouring states, said Mr Tugendhat.And he warned: “Whenever you have an Islamist extremist movement owning a piece of territory – whether it’s a nation state or whether it’s only a partial piece of one – we know what follows.“It’s absolutely predictable we end up with a violent extremist terrorist group harboured there exporting violence, and some of that violence comes to us. I see absolutely no reason to expect that what we’re going to see out of Afghanistan is going to be different.”The Taliban victory would inspire terrorist violence in areas like Xinjiang, Chechnya and North Africa, he said.But he said he was “very concerned” over China’s interpretation of the retreat as a sign of failure and weakness on the part of the US.“There is a possibility that China reads this weakness and decides that this is now, therefore, the moment at which it can flex its muscles,” he said. “And the US, feeling that otherwise it will look weak, will feel that it has to respond.“There is also of course the possibility that the US, feeling that it has to demonstrate that this isn’t a moment of weakness, will seek to invest greater efforts into alliances, which China will read as aggression.“So this is one of those moments where it’s not the balance of power that triggers conflict, it is the imbalance of power. It’s the moment when parties have a different perception of each other’s strengths and weakness that conflict is likely to arise, and at a moment like this, there is the strong possibility that that’s exactly what we’re going to see.”Mr Tugendhat said that defeat in Afghanistan was “a choice that we have made” and which was contributed to by three successive US presidents – Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.“The reality is defeat was not inevitable. Defeat is a choice in a conflict like this and it is a choice that we have made,” he said.“The reality is this is a decision made by not only this president but two former presidents, to effectively announce the departure, sign the instruments of surrender and then withdraw in three different terms. That is an extraordinary thing for three successive US administrations to do.“This is a staggering moment … but let’s not pretend this is only an American failure, because the reality is that this was a Nato operation.”The former national security adviser Mark Sedwill told the seminar that the withdrawal of international troops from Afghanistan was an act of “strategic self-harm” that would “fuel” terrorism worldwide.“This is in my view a bad policy, badly implemented. It is an act of strategic self-harm,” said Lord Sedwill.“It was not inevitable that either this decision had to be taken or indeed it had to be implemented in the way it was.”The former cabinet secretary, who served as an ambassador to Afghanistan, said: “The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan will undoubtedly fuel extremism and terrorism worldwide, whether or not it is directed from there.“So the security threats have undoubtedly gone up and of course the wider geopolitical consequences are obvious.“If you are one of our authoritarian adversaries you will be right now going around the rest of the world to those countries that are in play and saying to them, ‘You see, we told you so. We have the strategic patience and they don’t’.”The former Nato secretary general George Robertson, who led the alliance when the Taliban was initially toppled in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, said that it was time to reassemble the coalition of western and regional powers that united successfully in 2001 to root terrorism out of the country.Lord Robertson told the seminar that he felt “shame, dismay and a lot of sadness” to see advances in Afghanistan undone by what he termed “a hasty, crassly handled surrender to the people that we fought and defeated 20 years ago”.He said: “Nato and the west, whatever we like to think, have been weakened. That remarkable solidarity of 20 years ago has been damaged. And the mighty United States of America has been humiliated.“The coalition of self-interested neighbours, which we assembled in 2001 with a United Nations mandate was quite incredibly over the years allowed to wither. I think it’s necessary that it is reassembled, because nobody – even those countries who are cheering today – will be safe with Isis-K, al-Qaeda and the general ragbag of jihadi extremists who have now assembled in Afghanistan.“The tentacles of radical jihad will not stay in just one country.”Lord Robertson warned that European members of Nato must take the lesson from the US retreat that they can no longer rely on Washington for their defence.“Nato, and indeed the European Union, have got to look very, very seriously at the security world post-Afghanistan,” he said.“It is a fact – and this applied during the Trump administration as well as this one – that we cannot any longer rely on the American umbrella being there in all situations, at all times.“Therefore a much more serious approach has now got to be taken to the idea of alliance solidarity, and the European role within it, if we’re going to keep our people safe.” More

Blame game battles at the heart of the cabinet over Afghanistan raged on today, as foreign secretary Dominic Raab rejected defence secretary Ben Wallace’s claim that it was clear “the game was up” as early as July.His comments came as he began a regional visit, beginning in Gulf state Qatar and expected to also include Pakistan, to build what he termed an “international coalition” to exert “maximum moderating influence” on the Taliban.The foreign secretary said that the UK will be “pragmatic and realistic” in its approach to the Taliban and sees scope for “engagement and dialogue” with the militant group, but would not be recognising the new regime in Kabul.Mr Raab has told MPs that the Joint Intelligence Committee assessed that Kabul was likely to hold out against the Taliban until next year, but was forced onto the back foot on Wednesday when he was confronted in a parliamentary hearing with a 22 July document from his own Foreign Office warning of a “rapid” insurgent advance which was likely to see cities falling and a humanitarian crisis develop.Boris Johnson said that it had been “clear for many months that the situation could go very fast” and that this had formed part of the intelligence briefing received by ministers.Visiting troops newly returned from Afghanistan in Colchester, the prime minister said there had been “suggestions” that the Afghan National Defence Force might hold on for longer, but added: “Once people in the Afghan Army felt that they were no longer going to be getting that American air cover, then I think the logic for them became really to to end their resistance and so things did go faster.”The PM made no response when asked why in this case both he and Mr Raab had gone on holiday in the days before the fall of Kabul on 15 August.In an interview with The Spectator, Mr Wallace said: “I remember back in July arguing that, whatever we think, the game is up and we have to do what we can to accelerate whatever we’re doing.”He rejected attempts to blame military intelligence for the failure to foresee how swiftly the Afghan authorities would crumble, saying: “History shows us that it’s not about failure of intelligence, it’s about the limits of intelligence. When the Soviet Union crumbled, when Libya collapsed, when the actual moment came in Afghanistan, intelligence hadn’t failed. It was just limited, as it always is at the very end.”But Mr Raab insisted that he and the defence secretary “were taking the same assessment throughout until very late”.“The central assessment had been that Kabul wouldn’t fall until after the end of August and the evacuation of allied troops, and indeed there would be a steady deterioration throughout the remaining part of the year, so we were all working to the same set of assumptions,” he told broadcasters.The Foreign Office played down the significance of the 22 July report which wrong-footed Mr Raab during a grilling by the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday.A spokesperson said it was “wrong and misleading” to suggest the Principal Risk Report was “at odds with our detailed assessments of the situation in Afghanistan or our public position throughout the crisis”.But committee chair Tom Tugendhat said today he would have expected the report to be “front and centre” of the foreign secretary’s thinking.“It wasn’t supposed to be a ‘gotcha’ moment’” the Conservative MP told a Policy Exchange seminar. “It was supposed to be a discussion about a document that I thought would have been front and centre. I think it demonstrates pretty clearly what was known at what point.”Shadow security minister Conor McGinn said: “While British nationals and Afghans who helped us are fighting for their lives, the cabinet are more interested in fighting for their jobs.“It’s embarrassing to watch and tragic for those terrified in Afghanistan, who are looking to Britain for a way out of the despair, but just see a government fighting like rats in a sack.”Amid reports that Kabul’s airport is already reopening for domestic travel, Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said he was hopeful of “good news” within the next few days on the restoration of international flights, which could hold the key to the removal of thousands of Afghans left behind in last week’s evacuation.Qatar is understood to have used its links with the Taliban leadership, who maintain a base in the emirate, to exert pressure for the group to co-operate with the evacuation of international forces and dependents following the fall of the Afghan capital.Mr Raab said he felt “a responsibility” to those still waiting to leave for the UK either via the airport or by crossing the borders into neighbouring countries.“We need to adjust to the new reality and our immediate priority is to secure the safe passage of those remaining British nationals, but also the Afghans who worked for the United Kingdom, and indeed others who may be at most risk,” said the foreign secretary.On his first trip to the region since the fall of Kabul on 15 August, Mr Raab made clear he is hoping to forge a common front with Afghanistan’s neighbours on dealing with the Taliban and holding them to account over commitments to inclusive government, human rights and respect for women and girls.“I think it’ll be important to build an international coalition, and our Qatari friends are clearly an influential lynchpin player in that,” he said. “We are working with our G7 presidency, our Nato membership, we secured with the French, the Germans and the other members of the Security Council a resolution which provided a good framework that all countries should be able to agree on as a way to move forward.“Now we need to get wider buy-in from the regional countries involved.“I think above all we need to put a grouping together that can exert maximum moderating influence on what the Taliban does next. We’ll certainly keep working with all of those partners… to make sure that we can preserve the gains that have been made in Afghanistan over the last 20 years and continue to support the Afghan people.” More

Boris Johnson’s government is currently in dispute with several companies over £1.2bn worth of personal protective equipment (PPE) deemed “substandard” or undelivered, it has emerged.The government hopes to recover costs and is considering legal action over 40 separate contracts covering 1.7 billion items of PPE, a health minister has admitted.Lord Bethell said the health department was still is discussions over masks, gowns, google and gloves which “have not been delivered or failed quality tests”.Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner claimed ministers had “abused taxpayers’ money”. She told The Independent: “It is well past time that the government clawed back the taxpayers’ money that they have wasted on unsafe PPE and handed out to their cronies”.Ms Rayner added: “Ministers must immediately publish details of every pound and penny that they have wasted and regularly update the public on how much taxpayers’ money they have recouped.”The Good Law Project campaign group said the contracts in question amounted to 10 per cent of the £12bn spent on PPE at the peak of the pandemic – condemning “the scale of waste” overseen by ministers.In April, the Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove told MPs that that “less than 0.5 per cent of the PPE procured did not meet the standards that we had set out”.Jo Maugham, director of Good Law Project, said Mr Gove’s remarks “can’t be squared with today’s revelation that 10 per cent of the value of the PPE we bought was the subject of potential litigation”.He told The Independent: “I suspect that even this 10 per cent figure is a grave underestimate of the scale of waste induced by government’s insistence on contracting with associates of ministers.”It follows accusations of “cronyism” over the Conservative government’s procurement process during the pandemic, with Labour claiming contracts had been “rife with conflicts of interest”.Last year’s damning report by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that firms pushed through a “VIP” lane were 10 times more likely to have been given contracts to supply PPE.The NAO also found that just over £12bn was spent on 32 billion bits of PPE between February and July 2020, criticising “insufficient checks” which meant many of the items could not be used.In July it emerged that a former Tory councillor was given a £120m government contract for protective shields which were left unused because of concerns about their quality.Lord Bethell’s admission about the scale of disputes with suppliers came in a written response to Lib Dem peer Lord Lee, who asked how much had been reclaimed from firms providing equipment found to be “not fit for purpose”.The health minister replied: “The department is working through all its personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts to identify instances where products have not been delivered or failed quality tests and will seek to recover the costs for undelivered or substandard PPE.”Lord Bethell added: “As of 27 July 2021, the department was engaged in commercial discussions – potentially leading to litigation – in respect to 40 PPE contracts with a combined value of £1.2 billion covering 1.7 billion items of PPE.”Baroness Sal Brinton, the Lib Dems’ health spokesperson in the Lords, said: it was “shocking” that the government was having to consider legal action over such a large amount of taxpayers’ money.She added: “This latest admission reveals the scale of the issue … Ministers need to come clean about how we ended up in this situation and what safeguards they are going to put in place to prevent this from happening again.”The Independent has contacted the Department of Health and Social Care for comment. More

As the pandemic recedes, the damage wrought by Britain’s departure from the EU is becoming ever clearer – or so many Remainers believe. Shortages of everything from milkshakes to medical equipment are blamed on a lack of lorry drivers, which the Road Haulage Association attributes partly to Brexit.Some Brexiteers agree with them, arguing that labour shortages will lead to higher wages for British workers, and that this was part of the point of leaving the EU in the first place.But many economists disagree, saying the disruption to the labour market is almost entirely caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which prompted continental European workers to return home and older British workers to give up jobs such as HGV driving.Meanwhile, the standoff between the British government and the EU over Northern Ireland is about to resume. In July, Lord Frost, the cabinet minister responsible for EU negotiations, published the government’s plans to rewrite the Northern Ireland protocol – part of the withdrawal agreement he negotiated for Boris Johnson – saying that it was not working in the way he had expected.He said that the way the EU was interpreting the protocol was “leading to disruption to supply chains, increased costs, and reduced choice for consumers, and unnecessary boundaries that risk causing wholesale diversion of trade or economic damage in Northern Ireland”. He proposed a “freeze”, delaying the imposition of new rules that are due to come into effect on 1 October, while the two sides discuss how to solve the problems. His opposite number, Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission’s vice president, has said, “We will not agree to a renegotiation of the protocol,” but has agreed to further talks.The politics of Brexit are complicated by the Labour Party’s unwillingness to reopen the question, having voted in parliament against the withdrawal agreement in January 2020, but for the trade deal in December 2020. That hasn’t stopped Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, from criticising the “Tories’ Brexit deal”, but not even the Liberal Democrats are calling for Britain to rejoin the EU.Do you have questions about Brexit? I will be on hand on Friday lunchtime to answer as many as I can about what will happen next between the UK and the EU.If you have a question, submit it now, or when I join you live at 1pm on Friday 3 September for an “Ask Me Anything” event.To get involved all you have to do is register to submit your question in the comments below.If you’re not already a member, click “sign up” in the comments box to leave your question. Don’t worry if you can’t see your question – they may be hidden until I join the conversation to answer them. Then join us live on this page at 1pm as I tackle as many questions as I can. More

Defence secretary Ben Wallace has claimed that he warned cabinet colleagues in July that “the game is up” in Afghanistan, amid a deepening row with foreign secretary Dominic Raab over the crisis.Mr Wallace hit back at Mr Raab’s suggestion there had been a failure of over the likelihood of a Taliban takeover, saying he had argued in July that UK should “accelerate whatever we’re doing”.Mr Raab is under renewed pressure over a Foreign Office document from 22 July – issued weeks before his holiday in Crete – which suggested that the Taliban could advance rapidly across Afghanistan.Mr Wallace told The Spectator magazine: “I remember back in July arguing that whatever we think, the game is up and we have to do what we can to accelerate whatever we’re doing.”The defence secretary said: “I’ve already seen some lines about the failure of intelligence. History shows us that it’s not about failure of intelligence, it’s about the limits of intelligence.”Mr Wallace added: “When the Soviet Union crumbled, when Libya collapsed, when the actual moment came in Afghanistan, intelligence hadn’t failed. It was just limited, as it always is at the very end.”The defence secretary also suggested the US had lost its designation as a “global force” by ending its 20-year war in Afghanistan. “It is obvious that Britain is not a superpower. But a superpower that is also not prepared to stick at something isn’t probably a superpower either.” The comments are latest in a blame game under way in Whitehall following the humiliation in Afghanistan. Labour called for an end to the “unseemly infighting at the top of government”.Shadow security minister Conor McGinn said: “While British nationals and Afghans who helped us are fighting for their lives, the Cabinet are more interested in fighting for their jobs.“It’s embarrassing to watch and tragic for those terrified in Afghanistan, who are looking to Britain for a way out of the despair, but just see a government fighting like rats in a sack.”Grilled by MPs on Wednesday, the foreign secretary told them the intelligence assessment was that “given the troop withdrawal by the end of August, you’d see a steady deterioration from that point and it was unlikely Kabul would fall this year”.But Foreign Affairs Committee Tom Tugendhat pointed to a document from Mr Raab’s own department called a principal risk register – which appeared to warn Afghanistan could fall to the Taliban much sooner than the UK had previously predicted.However, a Foreign Office spokesman said it was “wrong and misleading” to suggest the document was “at odds with our detailed assessments of the situation in Afghanistan or our public position throughout the crisis”.They added: “The July document makes clear that our central planning assumption at the time was that the peace process in Afghanistan would run for up to a further six months.”Mr Tugendhat today said he would have expected the Principal Risk Report – which warned of “rapid Taliban advances” leading to the fall of cities and humanitarian crisis – to be “front and centre” of the foreign secretary’s thinking.“It wasn’t supposed to be a ‘gotcha’ moment’” the MP told a Policy Exchange seminar. “It was supposed to be a discussion about a document that I thought would have been front and centre. I think it demonstrates pretty clearly what was known at what point.”There has been speculation that Mr Raab would be axed at the next Cabinet reshuffle over his handling of the crisis, but No 10 has insisted Boris Johnson has “full confidence” in his foreign secretary.Mr Raab held talks with officials in Qatar on Thursday about the government’s “top priority” of safely evacuating British nationals and Afghan interpreters from Afghanistan.He said the UK will not recognise the Taliban in the “foreseeable future,” but would attempt to build a regional coalition to “exert the maximum moderating influence” on the new regime.The foreign secretary will be briefed on talks between UK officials and the Taliban, and is expected to discuss the prospect of persuading the new regime to reopen Kabul airport. More