Lord Richards & Lord Ricketts Speaks to Charlotte Ivers on Afghanistan and More

The former Chief of the Defence Staff Lord Richards has told Times Radio that Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab will be "bitterly regretting" not returning from his holiday sooner.

In today's Sunday Times it's claimed Mr Raab was ordered home as the situation in Afghanistan worsened but he stayed two more days because Boris Johnson told him he could.

Speaking to Charlotte Ivers, Lord Richards said:

I've no doubt that he regrets not doing so. But actually this was a reflection of the way that the government was caught out by the speed of the Taliban advance and what one can argue is that they should have known better. And you know it was certainly clearer earlier. And at that point Dominic Raab I'm sure should have come back. He'll be bitterly regretting the fact that he didn't, but it is a reflection of a wider malaise, I'm afraid, within Whitehall at the geostrategic level. I think there are questions about the way the National Security Council is functioning and the National Security staff...I think all that needs to be looked at very quickly and thoroughly, and there's going to be some big lessons to be learned about the way we run crises.

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