Boris Johnson promises to take in more Afghan refugees

AT THE END of July, when the Taliban were beginning to make gains across Afghanistan, but had yet to capture any of the country’s main cities, dozens of retired British army officers wrote a letter to the government. Signed by five former chiefs of the defence staff and two former heads of the army, it complained that Britain’s programme for resettling Afghans who had previously worked for the British army was not up to the job. “Too many of our former interpreters have unnecessarily and unreasonably been rejected,” the signatories wrote. “If any of our former interpreters are murdered by the Taliban in the wake of our withdrawal, the dishonour would lay squarely at our nation’s feet.”