Evidence submitted by the British government in court today proves, beyond any doubt, that Boris Johnson has been point blank lying about the degree of certainty Porton Down scientists have about the Skripals being poisoned with a Russian “novichok” agent.
Yesterday in an interview with Deutsche Welle Boris Johnson claimed directly Porton Down had told him they positively identified the nerve agent as Russian:
You argue that the source of this nerve agent, Novichok, is Russia. How did you manage to find it out so quickly? Does Britain possess samples of it?
Let me be clear with you … When I look at the evidence, I mean the people from Porton Down, the laboratory …
So they have the samples …
They do. And they were absolutely categorical and I asked the guy myself, I said, “Are you sure?” And he said there’s no doubt.
I knew and had published from my own whistleblowers that this is a lie. Until now I could not prove it. But today I can absolutely prove it, due to the judgement at the High Court case which gave permission for new blood samples to be taken from the Skripals for use by the OPCW. Justice Williams included in his judgement a summary of the evidence which tells us, directly for the first time, what Porton Down have actually said:
The Evidence
16. The evidence in support of the application is contained within the applications
themselves (in particular the Forms COP 3) and the witness statements.
17. I consider the following to be the relevant parts of the evidence. I shall identify the
witnesses only by their role and shall summarise the essential elements of their
evidence.
i) CC: Porton Down Chemical and Biological Analyst
Blood samples from Sergei Skripal and Yulia Skripal were analysed and the
findings indicated exposure to a nerve agent or related compound. The samples
tested positive for the presence of a Novichok class nerve agent OR CLOSELY RELATED AGENT.
The emphasis is mine. This sworn Court evidence direct from Porton Down is utterly incompatible with what Boris Johnson has been saying. The truth is that Porton Down have not even positively identified this as a “Novichok”, as opposed to “a closely related agent”. Even if it were a “Novichok” that would not prove manufacture in Russia, and a “closely related agent” could be manufactured by literally scores of state and non-state actors.
This constitutes irrefutable evidence that the government have been straight out lying – to Parliament, to the EU, to NATO, to the United Nations, and above all to the people – about their degree of certainty of the origin of the attack. It might well be an attack originating in Russia, but there are indeed other possibilities and investigation is needed. As the government has sought to whip up jingoistic hysteria in advance of forthcoming local elections, the scale of the lie has daily increased.
On a sombre note, I am very much afraid the High Court evidence seems to indicate there is very little chance the Skripals will ever recover; one of the reasons the judge gave for his decision is that samples taken now will be better for analysis than samples taken post mortem.
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The state and corporate media now have evidence of the vast discrepancy between what May and Johnson are saying, and the truth about the Porton Down scientists’ position. I am afraid to say I expect this to make no difference whatsoever to the propaganda output of the BBC.
“how about proposing an alternative explanation backed by evidence that is more believable?”
There is little or no evidence at all to support any scenario. That’s the problem. A list of past misdemeanours is evidence of nothing except itself and has no bearing on the matter in hand. In English law a crime is treated wholly on the basis of the evidence available for that particular crime. If a defendant has a record of previous, similar convictions, that is not revealed to the jury until after the trial. It’s to avoid what is known as “giving a dog a bad name”.
There a tiny fragments of evidence to support your option 10. The consultant’s letter to the Times explaining that Salisbury NHS Trust had had no instances of nerve agent poisoning, coupled with the fact that the Skripals are still alive, strongly suggests that a nerve agent was not involved. Also the fact that the police investigation was taken over by the security services very early on and there is nothing to suggest that a normal manhunt is underway to apprehend the would-be murderer.
thanks for stating all that… i got the impression billy bostickson was making premature conclusions as well, specifically his quote”I noticed a tendency on this forum to ignore the obvious fact that a rather long list of suspicious murders”.. no one is ignoring anything, except billy bostickson…
“A list of past misdemeanours is evidence of nothing except itself and has no bearing on the matter in hand”….
That doesn’t exactly apply to the devious dealings between Nation States, does it?
If we follow this line of thinking, then a nation threatened by Britain would surely ignore the fact that of the almost 200 current member states of the United Nations, the British have, at some point in history, invaded and established a military presence in 171 of them “because it has no bearing on the matter in hand”?
http://mentalfloss.com/article/13019/there-are-only-22-countries-world-british-haven%E2%80%99t-invaded
The Tories have got form with chemical weapons. They’ve been deploying Agent Orange for years.
She’s called Ruth Davidson.
am surprise nobody reported on this yet ?https://www.change.org/p/boris-step-down-as-foreign-secretary anyway share and sign people 200,200 have signed
Nicky,
It’s gone!
This is the message that comes up at the top of the screen:-
“This petition isn’t available. Either the URL is incorrect, it violated our Community Guidelines, or the starter removed it.”
If it was down, it’s back up. 200k and climbing.
How odd – it is there now. Maybe it was sheer volume that made it come up with the message?
It was working for me as just signed it and it accepted.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange released a series of tweets on Thursday implicating the British government and MI6 in the anti-Trump dossier scandal.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/03/julian-assange-drops-a-bomb-implicates-british-government-in-dirty-anti-trump-dossier/
Well, I nevah…..
Our questions were answered by Igor Aleksandrovich Milyutin , colonel of the medical service, Hero of Russia. Milutin graduated from the Military Medical Academy, studied toxicology, military field therapy, chemical warfare agents, their pharmacology, physiology, clinical picture of the application, methods of protection from them and treatment.
“Believe me, as a toxicologist, that we have a huge amount of powerful substances of individual defeat. For the secret murder of a specific person abroad, combat nerve agents are the most improper choice one can imagine.”
https://www.novayagazeta.ru/articles/2018/03/17/75834-poverte-est-ogromnoe-kolichestvo-silneyshih-veschestv-dlya-skrytogo-ubiystva
Interesting Billy thanks for the link.
I wonder how a very animated ResDis, will react to this, from a paper full of brave hard working persecuted dissident journalists, to use his words.
Anyone from the SNP querying this doubt it they are after all politicians really no different.
@Republicofscotland, sorry, who is ResDis?
That’s funny considering the success in defeating Kim Jong-nam with VX, or Aum’s assassinations of cult enemies using VX. Nerve agent assassinations have precedent.
But did he just admit to Russia having an arsenal of “powerful substances” ?
The SKWAWKBOX asked the FCO:
Point 17 of the High Court judgment relating to the application to take further blood samples from the Skripals states variously that their blood has tested positive for a ‘nerve agent or related compound‘ and ‘tested positive for the presence of a Novichok class nerve agent or closely related agent‘.
There appears to be room for possible conflict in these descriptions. On the one hand, samples might show a nerve agent or something that isn’t a nerve agent but is chemically related. On the other, it’s a Novichok or another agent like a Novichok. One says it might not be a nerve agent, the other that it definitely is, but isn’t definitely a Novichok.
Please advise:
a definition of how close ‘closely-related’ is in this description
why the judicial summary of evidence from the same analyst states both that it might not be a nerve agent and that it is
why the government is publicly maintaining that it’s a Novichok when even the most emphatic of the two statements by ‘CC’ say it might not be
The FCO failed to reply in any way by the publication deadline.
https://skwawkbox.org/2018/03/23/govt-admits-uncertainty-re-novichok-fails-to-clarify-comment-it-may-not-be-nerve-agent/
I suspect that the agent is functionally similar to Novichoks in the following ways:
1) It inhibits the activity of Acetylcholine Esterase (the enzyme nerve agents inhibit) at concentrations similar to that reported for Novichoks.
2) It is not inhibited by standard nerve agent antidotes, like Novichoks, but unlike other nerve agents.
The implication of the statement is that DSTL have not yet deduced a definitive structure for the agent and hence cannot say that it is definitely a Novichok.
I am hypothesising, I am not deducing definitively.
I am wondering if research carried out into these nerve agents might be helpful in the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Three of the four currently available medications available to retard the development of Alzheimer’s Disease and certain other neurodegenerative diseases – donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine – are known as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. While obviously they do not kill the patient so they must act differently or in a much milder way, their action sounds somewhat similar to that of these nerve agents.
“Alzheimer’s disease is characterized by the impairment of cholinergic function. One hypothesis is that this impairment contributes to the cognitive deficits caused by the disease. This hypothesis forms the basis for use of galantamine as a cholinergic enhancer in the treatment of Alzheimer’s. Galantamine inhibits acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme which hydrolyzes acetylcholine. As a result of acetylcholinesterase inhibition, galantamine increases the availability of acetylcholine for synaptic transmission.” (Wikipedia).
Would it not be wonderful if research into these terrible poisons turned out to unlock a way to mitigate or cure some of the most devastating diseases known to humanity? J
Oh for sure. I suspect any molecular tool to interrogate druggable targets will be of value, either in terms of knowledge or in practical value.
Organophosphates, though, are inappropriate as drugs because they are irreversible inhibitors of acetylcholinesterase. That, and their therapeutic window is perilously narrow.
I noticed that too. I think it’s a deliberate obfuscation. But not an outright lie. Here’s how I am taking it.
In fact, I think the truth of the first sentence is that the Skripals tested positive not for a nerve agent, but for a “related compound.” This could mean EITHER that they tested possible for everyday chemicals that in certain combinations could be used to produce a nerve agent, but in this case were not, OR that they tested possible for a poison that is not a nerve agent at all, but a “related compound”–i.e. it is a “compound” (and not a simple element) that causes effects “related” (but not identical to) those of nerve agents.
The second sentence is designed to weaken my reading of the first sentence without actually stating a lie, under conditions of plausible deniability. The second sentence states that they tested positive for “a Novichok class nerve agent” OR “a closely related agent.” The key to understanding the second sentence is that the adjective “nerve” need not at all be taken to modify the second use of the word “agent,” even though that is the most natural and plausible thing to do for a native English speaker. Rather, a “closely related agent” could refer to a non-nerve agent–a different kind of poison, etc.–that is “closely related” in precisely the way that the “related compound” is in the first sentence: i.e. it produces or is intended to produce “closely related” (in the relevant sense) effects: i.e. sickness, poisoning, etc.
So the two sentences are designed to obfuscate the truth without stating an outright lie under conditions of plausible deniability. And the lawyerly way to read them is to read them in the weakest way possible: the Skripals tested positive for a non-nerve-agent poison.
This reading would also seem to fit with the facts–about nerve agents, about the Skripals’ symptoms, about the timeline–as we now understand them. It also matches up with the Salisbury physician’s letter to the editor.
GOVT REFUSES TO DENY – OR EXPLAIN – SALISBURY HEALTH STAFF UNDER SECURITY SERVICE SURVEILLANCE
Health staff working at the Salisbury hospital treating Sergei and Yulia Skripal have complained that they are being closely watched by the UK’s security services, making them fearful of speaking out about events around the poisoning of the two Russians, along with a police officer who has since been discharged.
The SKWAWKBOX contacted the Home Office to ask whether these complaints were correct. A Home Office spokesperson declined to deny that health workers were under surveillance, stating only:
That’s not something we will be commenting on.
Pressed to explain why Salisbury hospital staff should need to be watched, the spokesperson also declined to comment.
In the absence of a government denial, the complaints, which have come from a number of staff, must be taken seriously – and raise the serious question of why such surveillance should be thought necessary.
https://skwawkbox.org/2018/03/23/govt-refuses-to-deny-or-explain-salisbury-health-staff-under-security-service-surveillance/
They probably have fond memories of their erstwhile colleague Dr Stephen Davies, who I very much doubt anyone will ever hear from again, and whose face has probably already been airbrushed out of the Salisbury NHS Trust politburo photographs
Yip, you’re correct, Stephen Davis has disappeared from the consultants list, he was there a few days ago-very suspicious.
Or maybe I’ve missed something.
http://www.salisbury.nhs.uk/INFORMATIONFORPATIENTS/DEPARTMENTS/PLASTICSURGERY/Pages/acMeettheteam.aspx
“Or maybe I’ve missed something.”
You have, the correct spelling of his name (Davies)
Thank you for the correction.
Davies is still listed as consultant for emergency medicine at the Saliabury hospital here:
https://www.nhs.uk/Services/hospitals/Services/Service/Team/DefaultView.aspx?id=288191
He is one of 11 A&E consultants!! on this list. I worked at a much larger hospital where there were just four consultants.
https://www.nhs.uk/Services/hospitals/Services/Service/Team/DefaultView.aspx?id=288191
And let us not forget Theresa May’s serious credibility problem:
https://skwawkbox.org/2017/06/04/may-reported-to-police-for-abbott-comment-electoral-breach-ge17-bbcqt/
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/oct/04/theresa-may-wrong-cat-deportation
There is a lot of talk about taking samples i.e. taking something out. What if they injected something into the Skripals prior to OPCW taking samples?! With all the skulduggery on display, one can’t rule out anything, me thinks.
That type of skullduggery wouldn’t work the way you think it would work.
What is Hate Crime. . . . Regaining Control
https://wingsoverscotland.com/nazi-pugs-fuck-off/#more-102034
Yeah the Jonathan Pie video, is right on the money. PC is getting out of control, in an attempt to further shut up the masses.
“The British have jumped to conclusions without sufficient evidence” says Paul Ingram as first responder to alleged nerve agent attack leaves hospital. https://twitter.com/RTUKnews/status/977215898913296386
Big turnout at the Hands Off Our Parliament demo at Holyrood.
The Powers Are Ours.
bloody hell it looks mental https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/12574/hands-our-parliament-demonstrators-lock-arms-defence-devolution
Nicky thanks for the link.
Yeah reel guid, looks like a good turn out, it sends a message to Westminster.
Funny Ros that the Commonspace article rightly mentions thousands taking part. While the BBC web pages said it was hundreds. And the Beeb story showed a pic that was half taken up with a placard in the foreground, so they didn’t have to show too much of the crowd.
Westminster, the mother of parliaments?
The BBC, respected round the world for integrity?
Aye that’ll be right.
Aye reel guid, objectivity and the BBC don’t go hand in hand. I wonder if Jackie Bird and BBC Scotland Shortbread news will carry the story?
Whether they do or not there were more folk at the demo today than the average audience for Misreporting Shortbread.
Just a followup on the enzymology post. Perhaps it helps to break the word into pieces: acetyl + choline + esterase –> small ubiquitous molecule + small common metabolite + broad class of enzyme –> ester bonds broken such as that in acetylcholine.
— As Yonatin notes, DNA testing is a joke. There was no OPCW-acceptable forensic chain of custody on the original blood samples. The sample could have been tainted (or re-tainted) anywhere along the way right up to today. I’d be very surprised if the OPCW had the slightest interest in the original blood sample. They want their own, drawn while they watch, with an aliquot handed over immediately, the blood vial sealed immediately and never leaving their sight.
— The Salisbury hospital assuredly did not do a spinal tap as even a muscle biopsy makes little sense here, whereas a blood sample fits right into the clinical pipeline. This is a routine medical test in blood work-up for medical conditions commonly treated with ACHE inhibitors such as Alzheimer, glaucoma and myasthenia gravis. Urine samples too would be incredibly important and surely have been collected and analyzed by now.
Both the hospital and Porton Down would have the assay kit in stock. It is a simple but sensitive colorimetric assay. This is also how the swabs from the car and house are being assayed.
http://www.abcam.com/acetylcholinesterase-assay-kit-colorimetric-ab138871.html [one of many commercial kits]
Porton Down lab techs would compare color formation (ie enzyme activity) in aliquot A to color formation in aliquot B. The latter would have various antidotes added to it that can rescue enzyme activity IF the poison used had bound reversibly to the active catalytic site of the ACHE esterase. Antidote additives didn’t help here, ruling out some common reversible nerve agents such as sarin and VX.
However ruling a few things out does not rule novichoks in — many other poisons also act irreversibly on acetylcholinesterase. The UK is light-years away from attribution to a specific chemical or even class of chemical if this is all they have.
For example, take rat poison. Skripal ratted on a large number of Russian agents. Were some stationed abroad, captured, tortured to reveal spy networks, even killed? Yulia’s fiance is said to be in Russian intelligence, with his mother higher up. A widow taking revenge, following on implausible deaths of Skripal’s brother, son, wife and now the daughter? Speculation to be sure, but personal, not at the level of state actor.
The rat poison strychnine is a readily available, highly toxic, colorless but bitter alkaloid used to kill rodents. When inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed through the eyes or mouth, poisoning results in muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia. The LD50 is16 mg/kg in humans.
The strychnine neurotoxin acts on very same acetylcholine receptors, primarily but motor neurons in the spinal cord which control muscle contraction. It comes plant bark but can be synthesized from scratch. It is available in bulk in nearly every country in the world. Strychnine the chemical has nothing whatsoever in common with organophosphate toxins such as novichoks.
“After injection, inhalation, or ingestion, the first symptoms to appear are generalized muscle spasms. They appear very quickly after inhalation or injection — within as few as five minutes — and take somewhat longer to manifest after ingestion, typically approximately 15 minutes. With a very high dose, the onset of respiratory failure and brain death can occur in 15 to 30 minutes. If a lower dose is ingested, other symptoms begin to develop, including seizures, cramping, stiffness, hyper-vigilance, and agitation. Seizures caused by strychnine poisoning can start as early as 15 minutes after exposure and last 12 – 24 hours.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strychnine
Strychnine poisoning today is commonly seen in adulterated street drugs (notably cocaine and heroin) and in herbal remedies. Indeed the earliest passersby to the park bench took the scene as a drug overdose. One of these was a physician who tended to Julia for 30 minutes but was never affected herself. Mydriasis (abnormal dilation of pupils) is associated with strychnine seizures. Not saying this was strychnine poisoning, not saying it wasn’t.
“Antidote additives didn’t help here, ruling out some common reversible nerve agents such as sarin and VX.” – Where’d you got that?
You’ve mixed interesting details in with wild speculation.
Strychnine is neither commonly available, without a pesticide license, nor is it an irreversible acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. Synthesized from scratch? Bob Woodward’s synthesis of strychnine was a seminal accomplishment in the field of total synthesis. Today, people spend much of their PhD careers devising novel, shorter, and higher yielding syntheses. This is the very definition of “difficult.” 16 mg/kg is actually quite high for an ld50, without the victim noticing they’re ingesting something very, very bitter.
Colorimetric enzyme assays are not used to analyze environmental swabs. Cars do not have enzymes. Gas or liquid chromatography paired with tandem mass spectrometry is used for this. These are extremely sensitive techniques, far beyond any colorimetric assay, that additionally separate mixtures and can provide structure determinations.
I thought everyone knew Boris was a clown when he got the job. A clown who’s now managed to put a spell on his soap box, in front of a wide audience, and turned it into a high pulpit in their eyes. By resorting to the degradation of language to an incantation of shrill denunciation, defamation, and demonization. History shows that the heights of authority to be attained that way bare no compare. It’s by an appeal to emotion, not rationality. Dr Goebbels wrote a book on it. Boris comparing Putin to Hitler is pot/kettle/black.
Turns out that Brexit wasn’t about leaving the EU to go our own way at all, it was about leaving the rank and file to assume Leadership! Leading NATO in the footsteps of the crusaders to Ukraine*. What better imperial rallying cry for a crusade against the beast in the east than “Russia did it” it’s already been running as a refrain since Hillary lost. Further revelations about who was doing the social media meddling the Russians were accused of can’t come soon enough. But it may be much too late, the fire in our Reichstag has taken some hold I fear!
(*There was some of that: Orthodox Slavic heretics, the entire population, to be saved by burning, and much less dysentery than further south.)
As you’ve publicly called the buffoon Johnson a liar, are you anticipating an action for libel? Or do you think that he’ll try and ignore the public defamation and humiliation of your accusation
And please do set up.a.crowd funding arrangement if he actually has the balls to defend his worthless reputation through the courts. I couldn’t contribute much, but what I could, I would.
Will ‘The Bench’ have a speaking part in the inevitable inquiry that will follow?
‘Nerve agent attack bench cut away and removed
The victims of the nerve agent attack were found on the bench at the start of the month, frothing at the mouth and unresponsive.’
https://news.sky.com/story/salisbury-nerve-agent-attack-bench-being-removed-11301383
Sorry to be so silly but it has been a silly week with a surfeit of silly news on this very silly story..
I’m sure the BBC can find somebody to provide a convincing ‘Voice-over.’
Do you know of any evidence of any other country or organisation having Novichok or a closely related agent? If not, then doesn’t this point to Russia?
Does anyone know of any evidence saying that Russia has any?
Yes, Iran manufactured reference samples of four novis two years ago.
“Do you know of any evidence of any other country or organisation having Novichok or a closely related agent? If not, then doesn’t this point to Russia?”
No it would not. You need to learn some logic!
Start with some of the following premises:
* states have been known to hide their arsenals
* Israel and North Korea haven’t ratified the CWC
* Iran made some “novichoks” and reported accordingly to the OPCW
* Russian destroyed its CW stocks under OCPW supervision
* the only country 100% known to have tried to assassinate someone with a nerve agent is Israel
* neither “A has characteristic X” nor “only A is known to have characteristic X” is equivalent to “only A has characteristic X”
What puzzles me is how Mrs May has been so categorical about the attack originating with the Russians and how she managed to get Macron and Merkel to support her. Both are pragmatists who follow the evidence, Merkel in particular needs to know the facts before making up her mind. Now May is trying to get other EU countries to withdraw their diplomats. Even though from the information in the public domain, the evidence so far is circumstantial.
So we have ask, has May shown Macron and Merkel other secret more incriminating Information – like illegally intercepted emails or direct info from someone inside the Kremlin? Something they cannot make public. If I was an EU ahead of State I would need more than the currently known facts to withdraw diplomatic staff.
Is it also possible that Putin had given general approval to get rid of Skripal ( we don’t really know what he was doing in the UK ) but whoever arranged it took advantage of Yulia coming to the UK without realising just how bad the timing was? I mean I was buying some petrol in a motorway services recently, and there was a big poster for the World Cup, saying From Russia with Love…..it seems pretty crazy for Putin to order it at this point in time. Maybe it is like Henry IV and Thomas Becket, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”
Macron/Merkel are just following orders from the US.
who in the US? – the top roles at the FBI and CIA are in disarray at present and you cannot be suggesting Trump planned it?
“Skripal ( we don’t really know what he was doing in the UK )”
See. There’s the problem right there.
What else don’t you know about the facts of the case.
And yet you feel yourself competent to offer solutions to the puzzle.
I was in fact speculating over why European leaders have been so keen to support Mrs May when the evidence in the public domain is at best flimsy – and one obvious hypothesis is that they have been told more than the public.
There was a report today in which Austria said they would be keeping open channels with Russia to maintain a dialogue but.a Lithuanian representative said Mrs May had spoken to EU reps and been very convincing about Russia being at the root of it and as a result they were thinking of similar retaliation.
As there are all sorts of holes in the “official” story and a distinct absence of a smoking gun, I can only surmise the EU reps have been told, or shown, more information than has been released to the general public. Hopefully something will leak out shortly, if so many people have had to be let in on the extra back story.
Hillary Clinton, silly
“has May shown Macron and Merkel other secret more incriminating Information – like illegally intercepted emails or direct info from someone inside the Kremlin? Something they cannot make public.”
Yes, of course intelligence has been shown, probably including alleged intelligence on the movements or communications of at least one of the 23 expelled diplomats, and probably alleged comms traffic from before it was publicly announced that something had happened to Sergei Skripal.
MI6 is involved in this up to the hilt. Richard “Diana job” Dearlove bleated that his advice regarding Iraq wasn’t made public, but that’s hardly the point given that hundreds of thousands of people were killed. I really could not care less even if he advised against the war – he is still guilty because he allowed it to go ahead. Like anyone else, he could have resigned and denounced the criminal mass murder plan, and not like many other people, as head of MI6 his action could have had a noticeable effect. Similarly, right now, those MI6 officers who aren’t doing anything to stop the current drive to war all have blood on their hands, the lot of them.
“Is it also possible that Putin had given general approval to get rid of Skripal ( we don’t really know what he was doing in the UK ) but whoever arranged it took advantage of Yulia coming to the UK without realising just how bad the timing was? I mean I was buying some petrol in a motorway services recently, and there was a big poster for the World Cup, saying From Russia with Love…..it seems pretty crazy for Putin to order it at this point in time. Maybe it is like Henry IV and Thomas Becket, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?””
I would imagine that he makes it clear when he is and when he is not giving an assassination order. There is no need for literary tension.
Here is what some people don’t get:
1) WW3 may be viewed by elites in both Russian and the west as inevitable. Indeed the psychological warfare conflict has already started. That’s actually normal with PW – it begins before the physical conflict and continues after it. So if it was either the British elite or the Russian elite who ordered this (and it may not have been), it doesn’t matter much which of them it was.
2) You have to ask why there hasn’t been full-scale mafia war inside the “Russian” mafia at any time, and in particular within the last 30 years. Believe me, if there was mafia war you would certainly see military weapons used. Note that important meetings have taken place “on the Russian economy” in London that have had among their participants both “pro-Putin” and “anti-Putin” figures, which says something about the utlity of those epithets.
I think the level of fuck-uppery is starting to strain the British state at this point and that fact was made clear to Merkel and Macron. Where they dragooned to supply a pillar of support for the creaking edifice?
France is politically rather similar to Russia. Both Putin’s “United Russia” and Macron’s “En Marche” have functioned as vehicles for one man, the executive president, and have established absolute majorities in the assembly.
There has been no notice of the above fact in the British media. Similarly there has been no notice of the fact that the British government, backed by a timid fuckwit of a judge, seems to deny that it ever ratified Article 37 of the Vienna Convention. That is clear from yesterday’s court judgment. There has, as far as I am aware, been no journalistic comment whatsoever. Perhaps someone should tell the United Nations?
Why haven’t the British authorities tried to contact Ms Skripal’s relatives? Instead they appointed the Official Solicitor as her representative. Will the poshboy regime in Britain even tell her relatives if she dies? Or is telling the Official Solicitor enough, so he can send some flowers and claim them on expenses?
I agree about the use of the Official Solicitor being highly suspect, could I be challenged?
We want evidence and proof. Nice try but no cigar.
One big cover all this now to cover up all the cracks with May / Boris…
“Cuts have consequences, there’s a crisis in policing, we’re not crying wolf” says ex-police officer @Peter_Kirkham as a watchdog says @theresa_may misled MPs and public on police funding.
https://twitter.com/RTUKnews/status/977230997493374976
Geoffrey de Galles,
The white smoke billowing, was probably just exhaust from the central heating, though I was a little puzzled why the bedroom windows were open, particularly at a suspected crime scene. However, none of this is particularly relevent to anything.
What is relevent, is the depth, and detail of the Daily Mail article, posted 07:22, 6 March 2018.
The depth and detail is astonishing, considering it all must have been compiled, the previous day, just after the poisoning took place, before the poison had been identified. That must have taken an enormous amount of effort, not just from the photographers, researchers, and journalists, all before the victims had been publically identified.
That suggests very strongly to me, that the press, had pre-knowledge, and prepared for the event, before the event took place.
Maybe the British press, have close links to The Criminals – whoever they are, who committed the crime.
Real Life, simply isn’t like that. People who throw up on a town bench, are lucky if someone phones for an ambulance. No one gets treated with 100+ personnel TV and Media Crew, even if they are George Michael, until well after the event. They wouldn’t know it was going to happen,
Also, this entire thing, needs to be taken in context to other World Events.
I still think my initial analysis, is more or less correct.
Maybe they were slipped rat poison in their drinks, rather than LSD.
I find the whole event totally disgraceful. I used to be proud of being British. How can I be proud of my country, when our Government and media pull a stunt like this?
They should all be in jail.
The similarities to pre Iraq War WMD in 2003 are obvious, but the risks to the entire human race very much greater.
In 2003, The Russians, were not going to shoot back. This time they will. They have said they will, and I believe them.
It could all go nuclear within 24 hours, and then we will all be dead, very soon later.
What a bunch of evil morons.
Tony
“The depth and detail is astonishing, considering it all must have been compiled, the previous day, just after the poisoning took place, before the poison had been identified. That must have taken an enormous amount of effort, not just from the photographers, researchers, and journalists, all before the victims had been publically identified.”
Isn’t most of that material coming from Reuters and AP.
Yeah, but.
How much coverage was given to the murders of all those other Russians over the past couple of years? And yet with nobody dead, and no reason to suspect anything more than routine poisoning, this one was all over the media with in-depth coverage instantly.
See for example:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/05/salisbury-incident-critically-ill-man-is-former-russian-spy-sergei-skripal
Why?
There is “no way” any nerve agent held at the UK’s Porton Down lab could be linked to the poisoning of a Russian ex-spy, the site’s chief executive has told the BBC.
Russian spy: ‘No way’ Salisbury poison came from UK lab –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43518061
United States Air Force in the United Kingdom … Just looking what Trump up too within the last 48 hours ..
“There is no way any axe of mine was used in last night’s axe attack”.
Dig that word “any”!
Oh, you’ve got some axes then? Are you sure you declared them to the Axe Control club? Are you positive. Why are you pulling that innocent face, Gary Aitkenhead?
Show us all of your axes, and we’ll also look at the axe that we know was used last night. We don’t want to hear your comments, thanks.
Otherwise, Gary Aitkenhead can shut his mouth.
Note that he doesn’t say that Porton Down doesn’t posess any ‘novichok’.
Craig:
Your reports provide essential information. I quoted you before in my writing, again now in an article on the Skripal affair I’m working on.
I want as many others as possible to know about what you’ve learned.
I include my email address on bottom of all my articles, encouraging responses. Would love to hear from you.
Stephen Lendman,
Blimey, We are honoured. I’ve been reading you for years.
Tony
I think more people would read Stephen’s article if he wrote them in coherent English
Comprehension is in the brain of the beholder.
Stephen, I too read your articles. Could you mention in one of them that Craig’s blog has been under DDoS attack?
OMG – there goes the neighbourhood!
Putin like Hitler, hm, hm… let’s have a look.
The English national football team gives a Nazi salute in Berlin 1938 ahead of the game vs Germany.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlbLHviSTPc&feature=youtu.be
BTW, SSSR did not take part in the Olympics in 1936.
He’s like Hitler? Why not sign a Naval agreement with him, then?
Mind you, he does have many admirers in the Tory party, as Hitler did.
So, the upcoming FIFA World Cup in Russia this summer is like the 1936 Olympics, which USSR (AKA Russia, ha) boycotted but our athletes were told to make the Nazi salute? Is that right Boris?
Nick, With any luck Boris will be in jail by then. I know Blair escaped it, but this is even worse.
You can’t put your puppets in jail for following your plan.
No.
It’d have to be another power did that.
Looks like the Russians are going to have to defeat the Nazis again.
We are another power. We actually elected these morons, though personally, I voted for the other shower of shit, who are also a disgrace.
Boris, i’m pretty sure he’ll be thrown under the bus if/when it becomes expedient – to the real powers that be, not May.
Preferably a large, red bus, promising loadsa dosh for the NHS.
We’re so divided and disorganised as not to be any sort of power at all.
That’s fairly obvious.
Elites don’t fear us. They manage us.
They only fear other powers.
if ol bozza had been around at that time you can be sure he’d have been calling anyone who objected to those salutes communists.
When Johnson crashes, he’ll crash BIG.
And I don’t just mean the comedown from the huge amounts of cocaine that he takes.
Used to be, probably still is, that very many in media were coke snorters.
Said it made them more creative.
A Russian lawmaker is suggesting that the nerve agent used on a former Russian double agent and his daughter in Britain may have been obtained via the United States.
The U.S. was involved in cleaning up a site where the nerve agent, Novichok, was thought to have been used during the Soviet era.
Novichok, was reportedly tested at a site in Nukus, an isolated city in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet republic. The United States and Uzbekistan agreed on a cleanup program in 1999.
Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted the deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the lower house of the Russian parliament saying the cleanup gave the U.S. the opportunity to learn about Novichok.
Lawmaker Alexei Chepa said on Thursday: “The Americans had access not only to the technology, but had access to its development. In all likelihood, their NATO partners from Britain also had this access
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/latest-frances-macron-supports-britain-poisoning-53764198
And the recovery company where Mr Skripal’s was taken to have no comments to make on when & why his car was removed to that garage.
“2. If they are not deceiving TM then either she knows it was not Russia but decided to lie about it”
.
Exactly. As Craig has pointed out there is is categorical proof that May is lying.
Copied to oldrightie.com. With humble thanks for you rare decent voice.
If you’ve followed him for a number of years like I have you’ll notice he can pull a source out of the hat for any occasion.
Put his name and his life on the line. You?