SUSANNA Reid launched a blistering attack on Dominic Raab today for declining a crucial call to Afghanistan while on holiday – before staging a “photoshoot” to show he was hard at work.
The Good Morning Britain presenter warned the embattled Foreign Secretary’s position could quickly become “untenable”.
Mr Raab is clinging on to his job amid furious calls for him to quit or be sacked.
It has emerged the top Cabinet Minister failed to ring his Afghan counterpart Hanif Atmar during his luxury family break in Crete last week.
The call – about evacuating translators from Kabul – was instead palmed off to a junior minister, who it’s been reported by the Daily Mail also didn’t pick up the phone.
Reid raged: “If anything happens to those people that we might have protected, his position is untenable isn’t it?”
The broadcaster – cutting short her summer hols to give Kate Garraway a break – also turned her fire on Mr Raab’s PR scramble.
Snaps released by the Foreign Office yesterday show the top Tory at his desk on the phone.
Reid, 50, fumed: “Quite apart from shame… just as a human instinct, you’d think ‘we didn’t do what we should have done, I fall on my sword’.
“But quite apart from that, he’s done a photoshoot. He’s done a photoshoot at his desk, and what’s he doing on the photoshoot? He’s making lots of calls.”
If anything happens to those people that we might have protected, his position is untenable isn’t it?
Susanna Reid
Co-presenter Richard Bacon chimed in: “Just in case we didn’t know what a man taking calls looks like.”
Reid swiped finally: “And of course, those aren’t the calls he should have made when he was in Crete, lying on a sun lounger.”
Mr Raab yesterday rejected calls for him to resign. He has previously insisted he remained in constant contact with officials during his luxury break.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace publicly threw a protective arm around his beleaguered Tory colleague, insisting the call wouldn’t have mattered a jot.
He told LBC: “I don’t know about his phone call sheet. We all have long ones. What I will tell you is that Friday, phone calls to a rapidly disappearing Afghan Government would have not made a blind bit of difference.”
The Western-backed Government in Kabul was quickly swept away by the Taliban last week – and its President Ashraf Ghani has fled the country.
