BUNGLING Cabinet ministers Boris Johnson and Priti Patel are still clinging on to their jobs despite a string of catastrophes.

Theresa May has declined to dismiss the two ministers for what would normally be sackable offences.

Last week Johnson, incorrectly, told a committee of MPs that a British-Iranian mother detained for 19 months in Iran had been in the country “training journalists”.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is serving a five-year jail sentence for allegedly plotting to topple the Iranian regime.

The project manager employed by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable wing of the news organisation, had been visiting her parents in 2016 with her then 18-month-old daughter, Gabriella.

Iranian forces arrested her at Tehran Airport in 2016 while trying to return to Britain, saying she was using her charity work as a front.

Over the weekend, an Iranian court said her sentence could be extended, and that Johnson’s comments were proof she hadn’t been in the country on holiday.

In a blustering and often angry statement Johnson told MPs he was sorry if his remarks had been “so misconstrued” to have caused anxiety to her family.

The Foreign Secretary stopped short of meeting repeated requests to admit he made a mistake and offer an unequivocal apology. Instead he accused Labour of political point-scoring and deflecting blame from the Iranian regime.

Johnson still hasn’t met the family. Nazanin’s husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said he didn’t believe the Tory was giving his wife’s case priority despite signs that she is being held in Tehran as a political prisoner.

Meanwhile, Patel, the International Development Secretary was revealed to have asked civil servants to look at sending British aid money to the Israeli Defence Force to support operations in occupied parts of the Golan Heights.

It was the latest startling revelation about Patel’s “holiday” to the Middle East where she held a number of secret meetings, including one with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. However, she didn’t tell the Foreign Office or May.

Labour has said there is evidence to believe Patel is responsible for multiple breaches and their MP Kate Osamor has called for a probe into her actions.

Downing Street said the Prime Minister didn’t know Patel had met with Netanyahu in August, when she met with him in Downing Street last week.

The UK does not recognise Israel’s presence in the Golan Heights, which was seized from Syria in the 1967 war. Providing aid to the Israeli army would contravene UK policy.

Last week Patel seemed to suggest Johnson knew of her schedule beforehand. On Monday, in a extraordinary statement issued by Patel and the Department for International Development, that was corrected.

“This quote may have given the impression that the Secretary of State had informed the Foreign Secretary about the visit in advance. The Secretary of State would like to take this opportunity to clarify that this was not the case.”