John's View

John Simpson, the BBC's impartial yet highly opinionated World Affairs Editor, having previously spoken his brains and vented his spleen on Twitter against the Biden administration's withdrawal from nation-building in Afghanistan, has today posted a piece on the BBC News website saying the same at greater length.

The piece's headline doesn't bother to disguise its author's opinion - or his name. 

John Simpson on Afghanistan: A country abandoned 

And in it the famous John Simpson of the BBC gives a full-bodied defence of The West's 'liberal interventionalist' intervention in Afghanistan. 

To summarise: Our intervention was a good thing and it achieved even more than we think it did, and we could have kept on keeping on there. 

And he then gives a cry from the heart about the horrible consequences of our withdrawal.

I don't think Tony Blair himself would demur from a single word of it.

John Simpson may or may not be right, but it still fascinates me how he's allowed to be so bold with his opinions on a highly controversial matter at the impartial BBC whilst holding the surely impartiality-bound role of BBC World Affairs Editor. 

Swift Update. 

And the big guy's back on Twitter now with news of his Radio 4 report tonight featuring ''a leading UK diplomat'' who, you won't be surprised to hear, agrees with him 100%:

John Simpson: Just reported for the 6pm BBC Radio News on Britain's and America's serious defeat in Afghanistan - including the judgement of a leading UK diplomat: the withdrawal from Afghanistan is ‘a thoroughgoing abdication of everything we stand for.’

What are the chances of that happening? John Simpson finding ''a leading UK diplomat'' who says exactly what John believes and John then popping him into his impartial Radio 4 report? 

There can only be one explanation. It's a miracle of BBC impartiality.