Doubts cast on No 10 claims about letter clearing dog airlift out of Kabul - The Guardian

No 10 says Trudy Harrison gave permission as an MP rather than in her capacity as aide to Boris Johnson.

Allies of animal charity boss Pen Farthing and a Labour MP have cast doubt on Downing Street claims about a letter by Boris Johnson’s parliamentary aide Trudy Harrison giving him permission to be evacuated from Kabul in August.

No 10 said Harrison was “acting in her capacity as a constituency MP” when she wrote the letter – as it continued to insist that Boris Johnson had not ordered the rescue of Farthing and his cats and dogs ahead of desperate Afghans.

But Dominic Dyer, an animal rights campaigner lobbying to help Farthing, said on Wednesday that neither he nor Farthing were constituents of Harrison but that she had become involved in their campaign after some of her constituents had raised it.

I understood the PM was committed to the operation and seeing it happened,” said Dyer, who had been intensively lobbying government over Farthing in late August.

To be fair to Trudy, she did a good job, and said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ I don’t know if she took it to Johnson, but I can’t believe he wasn’t aware it was written.