"Women in Afghanistan are now in lockdown

... for the rest of their lives."

Said this morning by an Afghan woman living in Oxford.

Those few Afghan people who have managed to get onto RAF planes are being flown into Brize Norton close to Oxford and into Manchester. They will be in covid quarantine for ten days then will be moved into temporary accommodation elsewhere. This afternoon I was at a meeting organised by my most recent employer to discuss how we can support people fleeing the Taliban and how we can lobby the government to take more than the derisory 5,000 a year whom they have so far said is all that this rich and spacious country can help. I was pleased that representatives of two local MPs, the County Council and the City Council were at the meeting, along with lots of voluntary groups, all making plans.

Although the other local councils in the county are being supportive, the other four MPs have said that they cannot get involved as the organisation pulling this together is not in their constituency - despite the fact that it has a county-wide remit. By some coincidence they are all Tories.

Usually when these military aircraft fly over my home I shudder slightly. At the moment I imagine them full of people coming from Afghanistan, including as many Afghans as possible, and I wish upon a plane.

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