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AIBU?

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Original poster

To ask if you think ben wallace has done a bad job?

730 replies

Needapoodle · 27/08/2021 08:41

Loads of people on social media calling for Ben's (defence secretary) resignation over pen farthing and his operation ark.

I think ben and his department have suddenly been thrust into a highly volatile and constantly changing dangerous situation in which he has to make decisions for the good of the most amount of people possible. I also think that the insistence on evacuating hundreds of animals will undoubtedly have taken resources away from getting people out of Afghanistan and prevented human lives from being saved. I don't think that calling for ben's resignation over some animals not being able to be evacuated is reasonable at all. Or have i missed something?

OP posts:
Rhannion · 29/08/2021 21:03

She is a complete bitch at the best of times. I remember how she slagged off Kate Bush for daring to get older

VeganVeg · 29/08/2021 21:06

Tbh Look who Rachel Johnson is related to...

😬

VeganVeg · 29/08/2021 21:07

She is a complete bitch at the best of times. I remember how she slagged off Kate Bush for daring to get older

Did she...will be googling this.

She just sounded really uninformed about this subject.

SunscreenCentral · 29/08/2021 21:19

The whole situation has been another massive embarrassment. Every other nation is worried about the women girls children and staff associated with western presence.

All the noise out of the UK is over pets. Sorry but that's just how it looks.

VeganVeg · 29/08/2021 21:22

The whole situation has been another massive embarrassment. Every other nation is worried about the women girls children and staff associated with western presence.

It’s possible to be concerned for people and animals.

All the noise out of the UK is over pets. Sorry but that's just how it looks.

They’re not pets, but you know that already, that’s why you’re saying it. Saddo.

KeflavikAirport · 29/08/2021 21:39

Um a) some of them are already pets and b) they are all about to become pets in the UK.

VeganVeg · 29/08/2021 21:47

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

SueSaid · 29/08/2021 21:52

Vegan try and be nice. Pets is not a bad word, if they are rehomed and let's hope they are or wtf has been the point, they will indeed be pets.

VeganVeg · 29/08/2021 22:01

Vegan try and be nice. Pets is not a bad word, if they are rehomed and let's hope they are or wtf has been the point, they will indeed be pets.

Jones, try not to be patronising. Posters very much know what they are doing by calling these animals, pets. What a shame that mumsnet has picked a ‘side’. They are not pets. Hopefully one day they will be pets but they will always have a history as something very different. That’s offensive to people. Tough!
Some people are indeed very silly, some people do lie like Pinnochio.

VeganVeg · 29/08/2021 22:10

Dom Dyer on radio 5 now!

Flyingantday · 29/08/2021 22:34

To be fair, on official APHA paperwork, for the non-commercial movement of domestic pet species (dogs, cats, ferrets) they are designated as “pets” as a distinction to livestock, horses and commercial movements which have different paperwork and rules - so it is the correct terminology.

VeganVeg · 29/08/2021 22:54

To be fair, on official APHA paperwork, for the non-commercial movement of domestic pet species (dogs, cats, ferrets) they are designated as “pets” as a distinction to livestock, horses and commercial movements which have different paperwork and rules - so it is the correct terminology.

Lol... and do you honestly believe that is why Ben Wallace is referring to them as ‘pets’? Be honest now.
My 3 year old nice is more grown up than this petty little man child.

VeganVeg · 29/08/2021 22:54

niece

Flyingantday · 29/08/2021 23:05

I can’t possibly know whether there was any subtext to his word choice… but it is the correct terminology.

Flyingantday · 29/08/2021 23:09

Do you also object to female canines being called b*tches?

VeganVeg · 29/08/2021 23:26

lI can’t possibly know whether there was any subtext to his word choice… but it is the correct terminology.

If you were a betting person, what do you reckon?

KeflavikAirport · 30/08/2021 07:32

Are embassy cats working animals or pets?

Saucery · 30/08/2021 07:36

Domestic animals I should think. From a veterinarian perspective practices are split up into small/domestic and farm, usually.

Flyingantday · 30/08/2021 07:41

I’m not a betting person and this trial by Twitter stuff is crazy. I also think it’s crazy getting upset about one non-offensive word in a tweet or whatever it was, correctly describing a group of animals. If he’d called them pen’s flying circus or something, then I’d agree it was flippant/derisory, but the mental gymnastics involved in waving away a verbal threat to “destroy” someone but getting upset about the word “pets” is ridiculous. Anyway, the pets are out, behind all the people they could process, so I think the MOD have handled it well and the animal people should perhaps count their blessings and show a bit of humility in the light of these terrible stories coming out about orphaned and injured kids who didn’t get out and didn’t have years of military service or Twitter supporters as leverage.

I’m sure there will be time for inquests and recriminations about the handling of all of this, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. It was presumably the same assumption that they would have months to process people that meant the government couldn’t process everyone in time and that Nowzad hadn’t significantly wound down operations sooner either. It was a salvage operation from that point and strategic decisions were made. I think most moderate people can understand that no one is the villain here. Just people doing a very difficult job with different priorities.

Flyingantday · 30/08/2021 07:42

@KeflavikAirport

Are embassy cats working animals or pets?
They would be pets for the purposes of travel
AlrightThereSkippy · 30/08/2021 07:53

I also genuinely don't understand why 'pets' is offensive...I think the correct term is rescue animals, because they have been rescued and not kept domestically though.

Doesn't make much difference to me personally.

I don't have a great deal of love for this government and I think clear mistakes with disastrous consequences have been made over the withdrawal from Afghanistan. I don't think he needs to resign over what he said to Pen Farthing though. I think Wallace's staff were getting abuse directly from Pen and worse from his supporters (understandable that Pen would lose his cool though, due to the stress he was under. And inevitable the braying mob on twitter would be after blood because they're so um... caring...ahem). I think, whatever your view, what Ben Wallace said reflects what a lot of the public think too.

That said, I think this is becoming a bit of a witch hunt against Pen F now and a convenient distraction when the government should be focussing on answering other questions.

As an aside, a lot of social media, is just a cesspit and makes me think that most people on the planet have something a bit wrong with them.... probably just the most vocal people though and the quiet ones are keeping out of it.

PaddleBoardingMomma · 30/08/2021 07:55

I give it a week before Pen has sold the rights to the movie to Netflix and cashes in on it. His comment of "I'm sad for my staff but relieved for myself and the animals" was pathetic, "sad"? You're sad that you've painted targets on their back and abandoned them to a torturous death? Well ok then...

Flyingantday · 30/08/2021 08:00

@PaddleBoardingMomma

I give it a week before Pen has sold the rights to the movie to Netflix and cashes in on it. His comment of "I'm sad for my staff but relieved for myself and the animals" was pathetic, "sad"? You're sad that you've painted targets on their back and abandoned them to a torturous death? Well ok then...
Netflix… Prince Harry could play pen Grin
PaddleBoardingMomma · 30/08/2021 08:02

@Flyingantday amazing Grin

Bythemillpond · 30/08/2021 08:04

So what should he have done?

He did everything to get them out and from my understanding it was the Taliban who stopped them.

If Biden hadn’t altered the paperwork requirements and they had got through as planned on the day they got to the airport the staff and families would be safely out.

It was the staff who said he should leave whilst he had the chance and to take as many animals with him.