We cannot leave Our Boys in Afghanistan to face the guns of the Taliban alone

Mask slips

SO much for the “reformed” Taliban, the peaceful pomegranate growers who learned from the errors of their hardline past.

It’s a ridiculous pose fooling no one who engages their brain.

The leadership is savvy enough to talk softly to the world’s press

But many of their tens of thousands of “soldiers” are brutal, illiterate Islamist cut-throats as bloodthirsty as IS.

When the Taliban says there will be consequences if America and Britain outstay the August 31 deadline to leave Kabul, they don’t mean a sharp word with our ambassadors.

They mean a murderous war.

After President Biden’s craven decision to suddenly pull the plug, economic “sanctions” are all the G7 nations have left

But they won’t deter the fanatics from inviting al-Qaeda back to the country to plot atrocities against us.

As for the “experts” who argue the extremists are too smart now for that, these are the same people who confidently claimed the Taliban could never regain power or conquer Kabul.

Thanks to bungling Biden they did both in days.

We have no choice but to leave on August 31 if and when the US does.

Amid the mayhem in Kabul, Brit troops are racing heroically to rescue thousands of terrified people.

But we cannot leave Our Boys to face the guns of the Taliban alone.

Parking mad

COUNCILS blame the collapse of their high streets on everything but themselves.

They’ll claim Amazon and other web giants are behind it. Or Covid. Or even, by some twisted logic, Brexit.

But why would shoppers venture into towns and cities by car to face exorbitant parking fees, zero-tolerance fines and congestion charging?

Drivers are being fleeced of a sum equivalent to 75 per cent of council tax income.

That is obscene.

Increasingly they will use the web or shop out of town unless they need, say, a hairdresser or nail bar or want to dine out.

What’s worse is that politicians justify war on motorists as “saving the planet”.

Tell that to voters when their town centres are boarded-up wastelands.

Glories rerun

ONE joy of Britain’s stellar Olympics ­performances is that we get to live through it all twice.

Who can forget the exhilaration of seeing our Paralympics GB heroes storm to one gold after another at London 2012, right after the historic ­triumphs of our able-bodied athletes?

They topped that at Rio 2016, coming second in the world.

And today in Tokyo they begin their quest to match or even better that.

These are some of our most brilliant and bravest athletes.

And we’ll be cheering them all the way.