The ’emotional scars’ that made the champion of commons

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His most violent attack was dedicated to US President Joe Biden, who criticized the actions of the Afghan army. “Seeing their commander in chief calls into question the courage of the men with whom I fought, and to claim that they escaped, is shameful,” said Tugendat.

Since he gave his speech, he has been inundated with messages from across the armed forces community and the political divide. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph from Lithuania, where he traveled after a discussion on Wednesday as chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee for talks on revitalizing NATO, he said he was most impressed by the many private messages sent by war widows who had lost their husbands. in Afghanistan. “I have to say that really touched me,” he said.

Among those contacted was his old commander in Afghanistan, Andrew Mackay. “Twenty individual soldiers died in that round,” says Maj. Gen. Mackay, who retired from the Army in 2010 and has since founded his own specialist consulting firm, Complexas. “I remember saying to Tom that whatever you are, when you go to a harsh environment like Helmand, it will never be the same person who comes back. I saw him written on his face when he gave the speech. That is why we all find what is going on so difficult.”

Tugendhat is the son of Sir Michael Tugendhat, a retired High Court judge who for nearly four years was Britain’s most senior media judge, and his French wife, Blandine de Louis. His uncle is Lord Christopher Tugendhat, a former Conservative MP, who sits in the House of Lords.

Tugendhat’s wife also comes from a political dynasty. Anisia Morel, who has two children, is a judge at the French Supreme Court. Her father was the French ambassador in Beijing and before that he was the ambassador in Moscow.

After reading theology at Bristol and then a master’s degree in Islam at Cambridge (including Mantra learning Arabic in Yemen), Tugendhat moved to Beirut where he worked in journalism and public affairs. When he returned to the UK and went to the city as an energy analyst, he decided to join the regional army at the same time.

His first position in Iraq was in 2003 as an Arabic-speaking intelligence officer in the Royal Marines. In 2005 the State Department asked him to go to Afghanistan, where he caught the attention of senior military leaders.

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