Abi

Like many other Blippers, my posts on here are not so much about the big things. Sure, I might have the occasional dig at the ongoing slow motion car crash of Brexit, or the decaying mess of the Tory party and, consequently, Britain, but mostly it's about my life. And not all of it, either; there are things that I don't talk about on here for a variety of reasons.

So commenting on the situation in Afghanistan is rather outside the scope of what I would normally write about, but in passing I will comment on just how shamefully the west has behaved here. Joe Biden may well, in his first year, have managed to both overshadow and define his own presidency for the worst, and Boris Johnson, well, he was true to form today, which is to say he was an embarrassment and a catastrophe in Parliament.

If one good thing came out of today's 'after the horse had bolted' hand wringing exercise in Westminster, it was the speech by Tom Tugendhat, a Tory MP who rarely features on my radar. I can't remember the last time I saw an MP speak so intelligently and so well.

In his speech - not all of which is in the clip I've linked to, above - he also talks about patience. And I agree with him that twenty years is not a long time and that we should have stayed in Afghanistan longer. It has become much safer over the last few years and maintaining the peace was not as dangerous as it once was and. If it was expensive, well it was our choice to go in there. (It's also worth noting that in less headline grabbing locations, such as South Korea, there has been a stabilising US presence for seventy years now.)

I mention all of this because I think patience, endurance, and stoicism are over often overlooked. Everyone can get excited by a single and simple act of bravery but I think there is something to be admired in a sustained act of fortitude. And I think that includes - or included - the Army's long mission in Afghanistan.

And so to Abi, who has spent seventeen years living with a disease and, as I've said on here before, she is the bravest person I know. Today we went into Manchester for her appointment with a new consultant who told her that there was nothing more to be done for now and that they'd just keep an eye on things.

Abi was charming throughout and I was very proud of her but on the bus on the way home some of her anger and frustration came out, and it pained me that there wasn't much I could say or do by way of compensation or help. But she'll dust herself down and we'll quickly go back to having to remind ourselves what she has lived with and lives through behind that sunny exterior.

Seventeen years of bravery. And courage.