Respect to the newspapers that fought a draconian gagging order which prevented them from revealing a Defence Ministry blunder and the
£7 billion cover-up that followed.

The battle was spearheaded by The Times and its defence editor Larisa Brown, aided by Sam Greenhill of the Daily Mail, Holly Bancroft of The Independent and Lewis Goodall of Global Media.

The MoD blunder was a data leak that gave the names of Afghans who had served alongside British troops and others who had applied to come to the UK.

The leak, a mistake by a serving soldier working at the MoD, put the lives of up to 100,000 Afghans at risk by potentially giving the Taliban a “kill list”. It happened in 2022 under the Conservative Government.

What happened next was nothing short of scandalous. The Government launched a secret mission – codename Operation Rubific – to shut down the leak and prevent the public from learning of it.

Parliament was even prevented from scrutinising the Government’s handling of the issue.

The Government set aside £7 billion to deal with the consequences it knew would follow. One of these was the biggest covert evacuation operation in peacetime. Almost 24,000 Afghans on the list were brought to the UK or will be in future.

Voters knew none of this because in September, 2023, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps obtained a superinjunction, which forbade anyone even revealing that such an order existed.

It continued under the new Labour Government and was only lifted yesterday after a two-year legal battle.

Defence Secretary John Healey did his best in the Commons yesterday to distance Labour from the unfolding scandal. He apologised and said he was “uncomfortable” with the secret clampdown imposed by the Tories.

Larisa Brown tells in this morning’s Times how she blew the lid off the story when she called the MoD to say she had heard about the leak and the gagging order.

“I had no idea of the magnitude of what I was dealing with,” she writes.

She was told to go to the MoD and took Pia Sarma, The Times’s editorial legal director, with her. Brown refused to reveal her source for the story and both were served with the superinjunction.

At the first court hearing in 2024 she told the judge, Mr Justice Chamberlain, that the case could become an election issue.

“It is objectionable that the court’s order prevents public scrutiny of decision-making on these important topics,” she said.

The news organisations geared up to fight the Government and made a telling decision to become defendants in the case, rather than observers. Only that way could they put the case for opening the can of worms.

Brown says: “We were forced to fight the case with our hands tied behind our backs because many of the hearings were held behind closed doors.”

The cock-up that allowed thousands of Afghans to fly secretly into Britain to make new lives at taxpayers’ expense taints the entire political establishment.

It exposes Conservative and Labour Ministers as shamelessly deceitful, more concerned with covering up their failings than meeting their responsibilities in a democracy.

It beggars belief that it was allowed to go on for so long. No one emerges with any credit and only one man can feel politically stronger this morning.

That man is Nigel Farage. We’ll hear from him in the coming days.

*****

Stressful times for butlers. The FT reports that many are finding a job difficult to come by as Labour’s punitive taxes force non-doms to flee Britain, taking their wealth with them.

I have had a discreet word with Drone’s man, Perkins, assuring him that if His Lordship should scarper, leaving him in the lurch, he can rely on me for a safe berth.

“Thank you, Sir,” he said, with a smile I thought a little smug, “but I don’t think that will be necessary.”

“Really?” I asked. “You think he’d take you with him?”

“I do, Sir. You see, I’ve kept a diary.”

What can he mean?

*****

I opened the Saturday Review in The Times… and laughed out loud.

There was a full page ad for Martin Shaw in Robert Bolt’s wonderful play A Man for All Seasons at the Pinter Theatre in the West End.

Now, sub-editors on the Daily Express in 1970s Fleet Street sometimes had a little too much time on their hands, especially early in the afternoon before the paper had taken shape in the night editor’s mind.

There was always fierce competition of course for the Lopes (anag) Cup, in which subs vied to see who could slip away most often, usually comically, to down a swift one in the Popinjay next door.

Another wheeze was to play a quickfire word association game. Cheese roll, someone said. A cheese ‘un, someone else responded... A Man for All Cheese ’Uns… Robert Bolt… Bolton Wanderers.

Which is how a cheese roll came to be known as a wanderer.

I won’t tell you what a ham roll was. But it rhymed with Roger. I can’t remember the labyrinthine route by which it got there.

By the way, if you can afford West End ticket prices, see the play. It is the story of how Sir Thomas More, Henry VIII’s Lord Chancellor, defied his King over his decision to break away from the Roman Catholic Church. Martin Shaw was born to play More.

*****

“Novak Djokovich has retired,” said my wife soon after his comprehensive Wimbledon defeat at the hands of Jannik Sinner.

“Really?” I said. “Immediately, or at the end of the season?”

“I don’t know. I’ve just read the headline in the Daily Express (online).”

I fired up the iPad and there it was: “Novak Djokovich confirms retirement decision after Wimbledon demolition vs Jannik Sinner”.

I read the story. Djokovich said: “I’m not planning to finish my Wimbledon career today. I’m planning to come back, definitely, at least one more time.”

So, not retiring.

Did someone think the headline was a tease? Well, it wasn’t. It was deceitful. It was a lie, plain and simple.

This is what happens when you put IT knuckleheads in charge of a newspaper. Thank God I don’t work there any more.

*****

Two stories for our age in the same edition of The Times.

The first concerns a man who chased burglars escaping with three of his motorbikes, which they had stolen from his garden shed.

Callum Duncan, 28, was charged with causing death by dangerous driving.

Apparently, he reached 36 miles an hour in a 20mph zone while pursuing the thieves in his VW Golf GTI. Hardly The Fast and the Furious, is it? Well, all right, maybe the furious bit.

The burglar who was killed, Dean Barnes, 16, had abandoned the bike he stole and hopped on the pillion of one of the others. He was thrown off as it sped across a junction and hit a passing car.

I don’t wish anyone harm but I am reminded of the old lags’ saying: “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”

In other words, we all have to take responsibility for our actions and accept the consequences, which occasionally are fatal.

The jury agreed and cleared Duncan, of Stockport, Greater Manchester.

The question that remains is: Who decided to charge him in the first place?

The second story is of a young woman, Irune Pedrayes, who is suing her £34,000 a year boarding school for allegedly failing to protect her from being plied with drink and drugs when she was 14.

Pedrayes, now 19, claims she has suffered a psychotic episode and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after older boys supplied her with mephedrone-laced vape liquid and alcohol.

She claims Buckswood School, near Hastings, East Sussex, failed in its duty of care by not noticing that she was high on drink and drugs. She is demanding £145,000.

Pedrayes, from Spain, is right to suggest that schools, particularly boarding schools, have a duty of care to their pupils. And as a 14-year-old, she might have lacked the wisdom that comes with experience.

However, she smoked the drugs; she drank the booze. Nobody forced her.

Okay, that was a youthful mistake, a childish misjudgement.

But own it, young lady – and learn from it.

Why is it always somebody else’s fault?

*****

They should call this the Tenterhooks Test Series.

The third match in this summer’s duel with India ended just before 5 o’clock on Monday evening after almost five days of riveting play.

At tea, India needed just 30 runs in their second innings with one wicket standing. They fell short by 22 runs. But it was a heroic failure.

Poor Mohammed Siraj, last man in, blocked a ball from the England spinner Shoaib Bashir. It fell at his feet – and rolled back on to his leg stump, gently dislodging a bail.

Another wonderful display of Test cricket by two well-matched sides, watched by a sell-out final day crowd.

Don’t you love series like this? Especially when we win.

RICHARD DISMORE

16 July 2025