In the book The Silence of the Lambs there’s a bit where the bloke who runs the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane introduces Dr Lecter to the mother of a kidnapped girl.
He removes “with a flourish” the hockey mask that stops the doctor from biting/eating people.
In that moment: “Any confidence she might have had in his judgement was replaced with the cold fear that he was a fool.”
And so to Dominic Raab, probably not qualified to be in charge of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane but 100%, beyond a shadow of a doubt, nailed-on, stone-cold, definitely not qualified to be in charge of the Foreign Office.
He brought the cold fear this week, not just to me – watching him sweat his way through a committee appearance – but to pretty much all of Whitehall.
In particular, the Ministry of Defence, who have had to work more closely with him than usual during the Afghanistan crisis and the fall of Kabul.
I’d run an MoD source’s full quote but this is a family newspaper.
To be on the safe side, here’s the highlights: “He is dire. He’s blamed us for everything when the reality is he is clueless. He’s briefing all over the place. Even his own people think he’s rubbish.
“He’s sent civil servants to countries where they don’t even speak the language. These are the same people who left documents blowing around Kabul.
“Johnson is only keeping him around because he stepped up when he had Covid. There’s no other reason. Anyone else would have been booted out straight away.”
That’s probably right. Mr Johnson has the habit of letting people hang around a lot longer than they should.
It’s a combination of skewed loyalty and the political convenience of having someone around who is worse at their job than you.
The rumour is Mr Raab will survive until the next reshuffle, although the counter-rumour is that ministers are already petitioning for him to go quicker than that.
Ben Wallace, the Defence Minister, is particularly hostile, with sources saying he feels he can no longer work with him.
He dismissed Mr Raab’s claim intelligence failures were to blame for Afghanistan, saying: “History shows it’s not about the failure of intelligence, it’s about the limits of intelligence.”
Quite.
Add this growing internal hostility to Mr Raab’s tetchy and defensive performance in front of a Commons grilling this week.
Ten times – ten – he refused to reveal when he’d gone on holiday to Crete.
To be fair, he probably doesn’t know. I’d put serious money on our Foreign Secretary not being able to find Crete on a map. The limits of intelligence.
Sooner rather than later he will be on his way, back to the sun lounger, this time indefinitely.
Still, the worst that can happen when you’re booted out of the Foreign Office is a bit of embarrassment and a dent in your career prospects.
This level of negligence and incompetence at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and you are in more than hot water.
You end up being served with fava beans. And, of course, a nice chianti.
