Pen Farthing got his animals out. But the evacuation is a gift to extremists who claim the UK holds foreign lives in contempt
As the gates of hell closed on Kabul, they were among the last to make it out. They landed in the early hours of Sunday morning, to a hero’s welcome from some, and shamed silence from others. For this was a planeload not of human souls – those desperate Afghans who had huddled knee-deep in sewage for days outside the airport in hopes of being saved – but of cats and dogs.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed, through audibly gritted teeth, that the private plane chartered to bring back former soldier turned animal rescuer Paul “Pen” Farthing and his menagerie of strays had been “assisted” through the airport by British troops in the final shambolic hours of the retreat from Kabul – even as human beings who had put their trust in the western forces they worked alongside were being abandoned to their fate.
