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Afghanistan

I do not think the hon. Gentleman believes these allegations either—at least, I hope he does not. There are often people who advise President Karzai of some quite bizarre allegations in respect of ISAF, and I have personally had to disabuse him on many occasions. I remember that on one occasion, a deeply corrupt individual who had access to the President's ear advised him that we were, in fact, training the Taliban; I wondered why that was given any consideration at all. On the other hand, we have to accept that this man works in a very difficult political environment and that the things he says are quite often edited and presented in a way that he does not intend them to be presented. I know him to be a very brave and honourable man who works in a very difficult and challenging political environment. As we can all imagine, to volunteer to do his job and face all sorts of pressures and attacks on personal safety requires a degree of courage. Frankly, although I often personally disagree with him in his analysis, I respect the man as the democratically elected leader of the country. In my view, we should support him to move forward as long as he is the democratic leader, and we should give him a little bit of leeway in what he says publicly.