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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This website remains under a massive DOS attack which has persisted for more than 24 hours now, but so far the defences are holding. Some strange form of “ghost banning” is also affecting both my twitter and Facebook feeds. So please
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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.
Might Jersey freeze Abramovich’s assets? And after he got residency rights there too! Switzerland refused him. That guy won’t crash without a bang.
On what grounds? He can hire the very best lawyers so they better be good.
White House staff pushing Trump to expell Russian diplos.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-23/aides-urge-trump-to-expel-russian-envoys-over-u-k-attack
This is even before Bolton, who is closely linked to Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica, takes office in April. He is despised in anti-Neocon Republican Party and in progressive Democratic Party circles. Given his hardline Cold War perspective and links to CA and thus SCL, US-Russia relations may well become increasingly tense.
If Russian hacking and intervention really did get Trump into power (which it didn’t), that pressure is not going to work, is it? A move quite likely to wreck the anti-Trump campaign.
The Establishment game plan was Hillary vs. Jeb. Hillary to win against the Jeb. But enter a wild card, Trump with his billions. After he won the election, the Establishment was quick to take over the Transition and especially the presidential personnel function. The personnel op transferred to the White House when Trump moved in. So from the start staffing was Establishment run. The plan has been to manage Trump, to play him, to the degree possible. Jared is an important factor here along with Ivanka. The Establishment generals Mattis and McMaster boxed him in on foreign policy as best they could. Bolton is a Neocon ally and represents that extremist policy network within the Establishment. The overall Establishment line is anti-Russia, anti-China, anti-Iran, and pro-Zionist. McMaster was a bit out if step per Israel. Bolton is not and is a primary vector for the Likud, Bibi, etal.
The anti-Trump campaign will continue and will use whatever issues it can including the bimbos. Pence better suits the Establishment because he is compliant and obedient one might say. Trump is not and it takes much effort to steer him. A Pence-Nikki Haley combo would be most welcome to various factions. Meanwhile Trump will be played. Bolton is adept at this.
How much longer is Attorney General Jeremy Wright going to turn a blind eye on CM’s reviling the Tories the way he did before Labour’s Blair and Straw?
Just asking.
From the Schiller Institute 22/3/18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V2fg2vcqOs
“As the façade covering for the centuries-long methods employed by British imperial elites, to maintain their control, is being ripped to shreds, their desperation has become highly visible, as they are now acting in the open, in their own name! This is a big blunder, as even those in denial about the existence of the British empire can see that London is now openly leading a push for war. In the last days, the irrational rants against Russia from Theresa May and Boris Johnson have become increasingly shrill, demonstrating clearly their fear that they are losing control.
The consolidation of leadership in Russia and China around Presidents Putin and Xi stands in stark contrast to the collapse of ruling parties in the Trans-Atlantic region, beginning with Brexit. The continuing indications that President Trump favors cooperation with Russia and China, rather than geopolitical confrontation, is heightening the hysteria in London. While a war remains a real possibility, due to British provocations, it is also highly conceivable that what we are hearing are the dying gasps of a collapsing empire. “
Meanwhile the 17 year old Palestinian girl who slapped a IDF soldier, after finding out that her cousin was shot in the head with a IDF soldiers rubber bullet, has received an 8 months prison sentence.
I should add that a IDF soldier who shot dead a injured Palestinian man, will only serve 9 months.
Which is the greater crime?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-soldier-convicted-manslaughter-sentence-cut-shooting-dead-palestinian-elor-azaria-a8263246.html
UK students ‘feel sympathy for Russians’
Students learning Russian at Birmingham University told us what they think of the current ongoing diplomatic crisis between Russia and the UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-43523962/uk-students-feel-sympathy-for-russians
Oh no. We can’t have that. Cancel their courses immediately!
Clearly they are Russian agents and should be dealt with immediately.
As far as we know (from a close read of the court document), the chemical used in the poisoning has not been identified. They do not have an adequate sample for gas chromatography, mass spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance or other techniques required to determine the chemical structure of the poison (see the Iranian 2016 study).
It is impossible to collect the original chemical from blood because it has undergone various chemical reactions that have changed it, blood is exceedingly complex containing tens of thousands of other chemicals, and the amount of poison was very small.
Rather all they have is (1) the enzyme activity of acetylcholine esterase on the red blood cell membranes of the Skripals was low indicating a nerve poison, (2) common antidote reagents that are able to restore enzyme activity after poisoning by certain familiar nerve gas chemicals were not effective here, (3) leading to the conclusion that those particular nerve gas chemicals were not used here, and by a great and unwarranted inferential leap (4) the agent used must have been in the Novichok class rather than one of the many other insecticides, plant toxinx and rat poisons that would have given the same outcome.
and the secondary unwarranted inference that even if it were a novichok that would implicate Russia and no one else.
I read the court document and I didn’t see where it said the chemical hadn’t been identified.
You didn’t read it very well then.
So why don’t you quote the part which says the chemical hadn’t been identified?
It’s been identified as a Novichok or closely related agent.
Idiots interpret “closely related agent” to mean “we have no idea.”
By analogy, it’s like saying, “the getaway car was a black 1970’s batmobile, or something pretty damn close to it.” It doesn’t mean, “i couldn’t tell if it was a car, a submarine, or a helicopter.”
No, technically that still means that have not identified what it is. There is no ambiguity in the statement.
But they have identified it, they have identified it as a Novichok or closely related agent.
You’re right. There is no ambiguity. It is absolutely a Novichok. The list of “closely related agents” is remarkably short.
They have been saying “of a type developed in Russia” all along. Now this court document talks about “novichok or a closely related agent”. Those two formulations come down to the same thing. The chemical has not been fully identified. Else they would have said “a chemical originally developed in Russia”. Very likely mass spectroscopy has shown fragments (parts of the molecule) matching with the novichok A234 (that is the agent the government says was used) but not more than that. All this is still far away from establishing where the agent allegdly used came from (which country).
“But they have identified it, they have identified it as a Novichok or closely related agent.”
That has been synthesised by the likes of Iran, and god knows who else.
So it definitely must be Russian then.
I heard a Russian delegate sum it up pretty good the other day saying.
If a British man were knocked down and killed in Moscow, by a Range Rover, then of course it must have been the British government that carried out the attack.
Of course Tata motors of India owns the brand. But I’m sure you get the idea.
RepublicofScotland,
You’re again making the mistake of hyperfocusing on the synthesis of the agents. Give any competent organic chemist an arbitrary structure and they could propose a synthesis.
But the other properties: it’s spectra (used to confirm synthesis), physical properties (need to be known for handling), and reactivity (will the molecule survive in air, moisture, or light?) Are unknown.
To determine these, rather significant quantities of a presumably highly potent nerve agent must be synthesized for study. Not “anyone” could do this, especially not under thr inspection regimen of the OPCW and with trade restrictions on chemical warfare agent precursors.
The Iranian/OPCW study producex 50 – 100 mg of compounds for mass spectrometry studies. That did not demonstrate a capacity to weaponize and deploy the agents.
DDTea.
I was under the impression, that you couldn’t identify (with certainty) where the offending agent arose from, without first having a comparison from a specific or specific labs that produced the offending agent.
Ergo the rhetoric from the British government (overwhemingly likely etc) reflects that position.
That argument would carry weight if the Government had not been telling all and sundry that the chemical had been identified precisely and only Russia could possibly have produced it.
Apart from your analogy being completely off in its last sentence – Mr Murray didn’t claim that NO nerve agent had been used as per the quotation cited – another analogy would be that bullets had been retrieved from the victims and they have an idea of the weapon used but they haven’t got an EXACT match to identify THE gun. How would that stand up in court to convict somebody?
The half-brother of Kim Jong-un was killed by a chemical attack in Malaysia
when two women smeared his face with VX nerve agent when two women smeared his face with VX nerve agent.
In 1952, researchers in Porton Down, England, invented the VX nerve agent.
Did Britain do it.?
@DDtea – “The list of ‘closely related agents’ is remarkably short.”
Why do you say that? Had they meant to say the substance had been identified as X, Y or Z they could have said so.
“Novichoks” are binary, and “A is related to B” includes “A has B as one of its components” and also “A has a component C that is somewhat similar to B”.
@Dave Lawton
“The half-brother of Kim Jong-un was killed by a chemical attack in Malaysia when two women smeared his face with VX nerve agent (…) In 1952, researchers in Porton Down, England, invented the VX nerve agent. Did Britain do it.?”
Excellent question. Did Malaysia demand that Britain choose by the end of the next day between 1) they did it and 2) they had crap security and their weapon got out of their hands somehow?
Your point (1) is a claim of the same class of the “highly likely” and “there is no plausible alternative explanation – class, because Porton Down never denied having reference examples for the “novichok” – family.
Your points (2) to (4) are a fairy tale based on the corrupt supposition (1).
Your’re welcome trying to refute me, instead of ignoring me like you did some 200 posts before.
PS: “Porton Down never denied” – to the opposite, see
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-43522986/porton-down-chief-russia-s-poison-accusation-just-not-true
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43518061
Those messages imply, Porton Down had samples of the “novichok” family of their own.
“They do not have an adequate sample for gas chromatography, mass spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance or other techniques required to determine the chemical structure of the poison ”
Define an “adequate sample.”
GC/MS and LC/MS are sensitive to part per trillion levels when paired with an effective sample pretreatment. That is, a substance can be detected on the order of 0.0000000001% in a mixture, especially if tandem MS is being used. Yes, some “matrices” such as biological fluids are difficult, but professional analytical chemists live for this sort of challenge.
I guarantee that Porton Down has more information about the nerve agent used against the Skripals than they are willing to disclose at this time.
“I guarantee that Porton Down has more information about the nerve agent used against the Skripals than they are willing to disclose at this time.”
.
But, at this time, there is no conclusive evidence that a nerve agent was used against the Skripals.
Of course, he may be “right but not for the reason he imagines”. Just suppose that during the recent exercise (https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2018/march/06/180306-toxic-storm-for-royal-marines-in-major-chemical-exercise), someone, perhaps a Russian agent, helped themselves to a small sample of Porton Down’s stock and used it for this attack.
Now it is all a matter of perspective, but that seems rather more plausible to me than that someone brought into the country something that happened to exist in this country only in the very area in which it was used, and happened to deploy it at around the time of a major chemical weapons exercise.
And it would be consistent with Putin being behind the attack, but in a way that was way more embarrassing for the Government.
Incidentally, on the subject of Toxic Dagger, I have now been pointed to a YouTube video here: https://youtu.be/s4BY74rfObY. It was posted on 19th February 2018, and claims to have been posted on the last day of the three week exercise. So it may be that the exercise was recently finished rather than still ongoing when the Skripals were poisoned.
I note that this video seems to have no comments until 19th March. I have no idea if that is normal, not being a frequent YouTuber myself.
[Cross-posted from off-guardian]
The video I posted is not from the very popular Royal Marines, but the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. Most DSTL videos get few views and no comments. This one has 1.2k views and 5 comments in a short time.
https://www.youtube.com/user/DstlMOD/videos
@meric Thanks for that additional information. So presumably the recent comments would be because of people recently coming across information about the exercise while researching into the whole Skripal affair, and then finding the video.
This may be of interest to some – a recent Russian TV discussion of the Skripal case, dealing also with the poisonings of Litvinenko and Yushchenko. What I found surprising is that at 38.30 the show is joined by Litvinenko’s father and brother who sit down on a sofa next to Andrei Lugovoy who, according to the UK, is Litvinenko’s assassin. They greet each other quite warmly and Litvinenko père reveals that he voted for Putin and that he believes the real assassin was Alexander Goldfarb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYUHhkSbuxw
thank you, very interesting.
will this be picked up by the British media?
it is a shame that is not available in english.. i am curious to see/read it..
Did Goldfarb have lunch with Sasha the day before the alleged poisoning on Oxford Street? It takes a day or so for polonium-210 to show symptoms.
Gordfarf reminds me of The Guardian’s David Leigh destroying the Stalker Inquiry.
Hope the Skripals are guarded with integrity.
Litvinenko’s father, Valter Litvinenko believes that his son was fatally poisoned whilst actually in UK hospital.
More info here
https://sputniknews.com/russia/201803201062741017-litvinenko-father-lugovoy-hug-murderer/
Valter Litvinenko also says that he visited his son in hospital over several days and always wearing normal clothes.
Goldfarb has been funded by both George Soros and Boris Berezovsky.
http://thesaker.is/russian-mfa-summons-all-ambassadors-to-a-meeting-on-skripal-case-must-watch/
TL;DR “Aren’t you embarrassed to speak about this in the presence of this audience, ambassadors from 150 states? This is ridiculous. I feel sorry for British diplomacy.”
British diplomacy doesn’t exist.
Theresa May is complete idiot and unworthy to hold the office. If Johnson speaks for her Government then she should be removed from office at once as someone wholly unfit to hold the rank.
James Devine
March 24 10.59
“Now the OPCW have taken their own blood samples”…
Have they?
Or were they provided with blood samples taken by UK medics ?
Either they took their own, or they observed hospital staff drawing blood and sealing it in sample tubes and transferring it to OPCW possession. They established a complete chain of custody.
That is reassuring DDTea. Thanks for the insight. Do you trust the OPCW as independent?
You read similar to another poster here called Habbabkuk btw. They’re banned right now though so I guess you might not bump into each other…
‘They established a complete chain of custody’
How do you know that?
Yes. So they have
1) samples taken from the Skripals 3 weeks after the attack, and
2) samples given to them by the Brits that the Brits say they took from the Skripals much earlier
They will test both 1) and 2), and they will also compare DNA they take with 2).
They cannot establish for certain
* whether or not the Skripals were given nerve agent or some other CW after the attack
* that 2) is genuine (although they may be able to establish that it is not genuine)
I see the BBC are still saying the Skipals were poisoned with a nerve agent called Novichok despite the court case you reference. No wonder the workers at Porton Down are “frustrated”.
And that the UK has evidence that Russia made these within the last 10 years (see their article on Ireland’s response). We don’t seem to have been sticking to our obligations to let the chemical weapons experts know this.
Likely was the Russians testing EU solidarity in light of Brexit/Trump – but we still have no evidence, as the students interviewed pointed out.
An interesting look at Cambridge Analytica, and just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/David-Burnside-Putin-Russia-DUP-Brexit-Donaldson-Vincent-Tchenguiz
The just passed $1.3 trillion spending bill contains anti-Russia provisions. Upwards of 90 percent of Congress can be considered anti-Russia. This is a reflection of the level of delusion and hysteria in Washington.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/23/politics/government-funding-russia-punishment/index.html
Well said Mark G., the diversion of our foreign policy goals and usurping with that of other countries foreign policy goals has got nothing to do representing one’s constituency.
The loacl elections will be under a spotlight of eradicating anti semitism in the Labour Party, make it conform to the MSM priority for that party.
The Tory’s will call the shots with their ‘resolute responses to terror,’ Europe wide, and Wreckxit, off course, how they negotiated a mauch larger bill in return for anEU press release agreeing with terroreza.
Which brings me to the point that should all fail, our friends in Saudi Arabia, Cambridge Analaytica, which managed to secret their files away, imho, and the usual cheating they are known for.
I think the best thing that could happen is a boycott of local elections.
reasons: Cuts to vital services, shifting of national responsibilities to local councillors with no nous, the unnecessary death of disability benefit recipients, to the point of local councils being unworkable.
Should one advocate the cancellation of direct debit council tax payments for two month? would that give them a message to behold?, stop enacting cuts to vital services and working for your cronies only.
@ all thanks for some excellent links. I am trying to persuade footie addicts to give the world cup a miss as Theresa has poisoned the atmosphere for them in Russia.
Alternative get a T shirt saying
Hе во имя Мое, спорт – спорт, or
Не на мое имя, спорт – спорт
The anti semitic smears won’t make any difference.
Voters base their choices on the issues that matter to them. Labour are picking up more support because more people are becoming concerned about housing, public services, austerityand employment rights. No one other than racists approve of anti Semitism but even a real AS scandal would get filed alongside pussy grabbing as something voters disapprove of but not enough to effect their binary choice.
Corbyn grew the Jewish vote in the last GE for Labour. The Jewish community see through the nonsense.
@ knuckWe are witnessing a wave of orchestrated hysteria over claims that the Labour Party is rife with antisemitism and has a ‘problem with Jews.’ This is not true. Yes there is indeed a problem. The problem is that some people – Jewish and otherwise, inside and outside the party – use allegations of anti-Semitism as a stick to beat the Corbyn leadership, regardless of the damage caused.
Jeremy Corbyn and others have done their best to respond, rightly asserting their impeccable anti-racist credentials, treating specific allegations of antisemitism seriously, investigating them and taking appropriate measures. This is no more and no less than should happen with allegations of racism or discrimination of any kind.les March 24, 2018 at 19:21
‘LABOUR JEWS ASSERT: The Labour Party does not have a ‘problem with Jews’:
http://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/labour-jews-assert-the-party-does-not-have-a-problem-with-jews/#sthash.lTzNgWea.dpbs
‘We are witnessing a wave of orchestrated hysteria over claims that the Labour Party is rife with antisemitism and has a ‘problem with Jews.’ This is not true. Yes there is indeed a problem. The problem is that some people – Jewish and otherwise, inside and outside the party – use allegations of anti-Semitism as a stick to beat the Corbyn leadership, regardless of the damage caused.
Jeremy Corbyn and others have done their best to respond, rightly asserting their impeccable anti-racist credentials, treating specific allegations of antisemitism seriously, investigating them and taking appropriate measures. This is no more and no less than should happen with allegations of racism or discrimination of any kind…..’
There you have it from the horses’ mouths…
Excellent Nevermind.
‘Not in my name. Sport is sport.’
Thanks for reporting that to us, Craig. We have yet to find out what evidence Mrs May presented at the EU meeting that lead to European leaders suggesting that they might impose their own sanction against Russia on Monday. She must have been very convincing. However Johnson’s Hitler statement will have turned 25 million Russian families against us, so I can’t see sanctions having any effect at all.
Don’t forget that all but one of the EU states proposing sanctions are obsessively anti-Russian East European countries. They won’t have taken much convincing….and Macron, he has his own reasons.
I am naive and innocent, I never even considered that as a possibility. However others have. Why according to most substantive reports, only 3 people were affected? What was the role of The Detective? Why was he there? It was his weekend off. He doesn’t normally work Sundays. If true, which I doubt, then maybe this poison really is a very dangerous nerve agent as described by the Government. But weren’t the Government exceedingly negligent, in not training The Detective how to handle it? Why not instead, just give him a gun. I’ve seen The Sweeney.
Meanwhile, there are very substantive reports, coming Thank God from The Ministry of Defence.
They were apparently practicing a large scale Chemical Attack, on Salisbury Plain, at the same time as our two dear Russian friends were affected. I thought no, don’t be silly… That is too much like Peter Power, when he was interviewed by The BBC, live on the morning of the London Bombings. “We instantly had to switch from “Trial/Test – just a Terrorist Exercise” instantly to “Real”, at the same locations as the exercise.”
All of these coincidences are of course very fortunate, in protecting the British Public from Terrorist Attack. It is very reassuring to know, that The Ministry of Defence and GCHQ, can prepare and predict Terrorist Events and Chemical Attacks, well into the future, and have the personnel, instantly available, at the correct location, to deal with these evil terrorists, and prevent any further carnage, until the next one.
https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2018/march/06/180306-toxic-storm-for-royal-marines-in-major-chemical-exercise
Tony
“All of these coincidences are of course very fortunate, in protecting the British Public from Terrorist Attack. It is very reassuring to know, that The Ministry of Defence and GCHQ, can prepare and predict Terrorist Events and Chemical Attacks, well into the future …”
Indeed, and I think it’s very considerate of the Russians to carry out their attacks so conveniently close to a chemical weapons facility that has the expertise and resources to identify the agent so accurately and quickly.
I mean, imagine if they’d carried out an attack in London’s Square Mile, forcing the army to cordon off the hub of Britain’s financial sector, and causing real problems for the British establishment!
Luckily, they chose a small town in Wiltshire to show the world just how powerful and insidious they are.
Anybody wanting to see the glorious purchases of Oligarchs in London, the decades long connections Cambridge and Oxford universities have with money men from Russia and how much power/money they hold/spend on the Tory party, there is a tour on April 27 in central London.
This is not a local election tour organised by Corbin.
On this special Kleptocracy Tour, your guides will be:
Oliver Bullough journalist and author of The Last Man in Russia;
Dr Andrew Foxall Russia Studies Centre at The Henry Jackson Society;
Luke Harding journalist and author of A Very Expensive Poison;
Dr Ala’a Shehabi economist and writer, co-founder of Bahrein Watch;
Matthew Page U.S. intelligence community’s top expert on Nigeria;
Roman Borisovich ClampK founder, From Russia With Cash documentary
The guest speaker will be Professor Steve Keen of Kingston University. In addition, representatives of Transparency International, Global Witness, and ClampK, leaders of the campaign for transparency of global offshore tax havens, will attend.
The Tour around central London will be conducted from the comfort of a luxury coach.
My note: and MI6 will be informed of the proceedings by their very own scribe.
doooh….
http://clampk.org/
The Henry Jackson connection is most off-putting.
Here is Foxall. I had to be careful to spell that with an ‘o’ and not a ‘u’. https://youtu.be/0HqAsWyLj9k
Is the whole thing for real?
I expected people to recoil at the appearances at this event. Sorry if i made anyone sick….
Claiming that something is “highly likely” and that “there is no plausible alternative explanation” is what you say when there is no proof, and when you send in Colin Powell to the United Nations to lie to the world that a vial of sand is really anthrax and one should immediately launch a war to crush an evil regime just because, well, a vial of sand. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-24/trump-expel-dozens-russian-diplomats-response-skripal-poisoning
@ Harry Law March 24, 2018 at 18:14
Colin Powell was the American officer who tried to cover up the My Lai massacre in Vietnam (by the way, My Lai was not an ‘aberration’, but a regular occurrence. What was unusual about it was that another US officer in a helicopter saw what was going on, and landed and put a stop to it, at gunpoint.
i am bumping this comment up in case some folks missed it…
“WJ
March 23, 2018 at 19:53
Regarding the ambiguity of some phrases in the High Court judgment, I submitted this comment further up-thread but since it directly pertains to your argument here I am re-posting here. I have found in my profession that in reading legal documents, one should always opt for the WEAKEST reading possible if there is ANY ambiguity in the language. Hence the following.
There are two non-identical sentences describing the Skripals’ test results in the high court judgment. How should we read them, individually and in combination. Here is my guess:
I think the truth behind the first sentence is that the Skripals tested positive not for a nerve agent, but for a “related compound.” (Otherwise this phrase would not have been included at all.) 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. a “compound” (and not a simple element) that causes effects “related” to (but not identical with) those of nerve agents.
The second sentence is designed to weaken my skeptical 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 be taken to modify the second use of the word “agent,” even though that is the most natural and plausible way to read the sentence for a native English speaker. Rather, a “closely related agent” could refer to a non-nerve agent–a different kind of poison–that is “closely related” to a “Novichok class nerve agent” in precisely the way that the “related compound” is related to “nerve agent” in the first sentence: i.e. it is an agent that produces or is intended to produce “closely related” (in the relevant sense) effects–sickness, poisoning, etc–to those of a nerve agent (Novichok class or otherwise).
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 much discussed Salisbury physician’s letter to the editor, which differentiates “poison” from “nerve agent” in just this way.”
There is no doubt they were poisoned by a nerve agent. The question is if they were poisoned by a Novichok nerve agent or a very similar nerve agent.
The problem arises because there has never been an agreed specification on the chemical structure of Novichok nerve agents, they are not on the OPCW schedules. They were discussed in 2013 but agreement was not reached.
“There is no doubt they were poisoned by a nerve agent”
There is a great deal of doubt about that.
‘There is no doubt they were poisoned by a nerve agent”
There is much doubt.
Didn’t the consultant at NHS Salisbury Hospital write in reply to the Times ‘that there had been NO cases of nerve poisoning but there had been 3 cases of poisoning.’
Here is the exact statement:
“Sir, Further to your report (“Poison Exposure Leaves Almost 40 Needing Treatment”, Mar 14), may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning in Salisbury and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent involved.
STEPHEN DAVIES, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust”
Notice “no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve-agent poisoning in Salisbury”.
Seems like a surfeit of doubt!
It’s just a badly worded letter referring to the members of the public who were arriving at the hospital worrying they might have been poisoned trying to put their minds at rest after the Times had falsely claimed 40 people had needed treatment.
It doesn’t actually contradict the mass of evidence that a nerve agent was used. He didn’t actually say the three people had symptoms of poisoning not nerve poisoning I’m sure he never thought anyone would take his words to mean the Skripals hadn’t been poisoned with a nerve agent just because he neglected to put the words “nerve agent” in front of the word “poisoning”. He probably assumed everyone would know what he meant.
“the mass of evidence that a nerve agent was used”
There isn’t even the tiniest scrap of evidence, let alone a mass.
“It’s just a badly worded letter”
Translation: it doesn’t tell me what I want to hear.
“There is no doubt they were poisoned by a nerve agent.”
Surely, unless you are privy to information held by a very small group of people in Westminster and Porton Down, it is purely a matter of who one chooses to believe? Therein lies the problem of this incident.
If you have verifiable proof of your many claims here, why have you consistently failed to provide it? Of course ‘proof’ does not include statements made by May or Johnson, Putin etc., or claims made in the British media.
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“In Britain, during this last week, something very nasty made its presence known to the nation. And it was not Putin or Russia. It was a coldly executed, psychologically loaded attempt to silence those who wished to express an opinion, other than the one held by the government.
Those who believe that the notion that Vladimir Putin is responsible for the poisoning of a Russian double agent and his daughter in the town of Salisbury, England, is unproven.
The British Prime Minister, Theresa May, stated outright “There is no alternative to the conclusion that Russia was responsible.” This was an order, not a statement of fact. An order to step in line and not court controversy.
It capped months of hysterical anti Russian rhetoric and vilification, which in more ways than one, strongly echoed the George Bush and Tony Blair tirades of 9/11/2001. Tirades deliberately directed to make Saddam Hussein fit the role of the number one villain of that particular moment of time, as the unquestionable holder of non existent ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ Now Putin is being given the 9/11 treatment. A chilling reminder that this is a repeat of a direct incitement to war.
But those who control the political course of events so as to achieve their sinister goals, know that people forget. So Theresa May no doubt feels quite secure in proclaiming Putin to be the new Mr Evil, and the undoubted purveyor of this particular version of a weapon of mass destruction.
Quite secure in inciting arguments that the Country should be prepared to go to war with this ‘Russian monster’, all because some obscure Soviet double agent had been poisoned with a nasty organophosphate product on British soil.”
http://internationaltimes.it/the-denial-of-the-right-to-an-opinion/
Excellent points. Blair met with Bush in Texas April 6-7 2002. Decision to launch war against Iraq probably finalized at this Crawford Summit. From that point, preparations for war were secretly undertaken. This included bombing runs against Iraq etc. during the summer. Bush advisors felt it would be best for appearances to go through a charade at the UN, not that the UN mattered. Rumsfelt did the constant reference to Churchill thing and the administration played the Saddam as Hitler meme. Elaborate preparation of public opinion using television and radio. When all was ready to go, war in 2003.
Note the months of psyops directed against US and European populations to prepare them for war. Minths of secret military preparations. Saddam as Hitler meme. We must be like Churchill meme. And so on.
A useful refresher here of the chronology:
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=complete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq_2853
A useful exercise would be to create a similar chronology for the Russia confrontation.
Bear in mind that Bolton was one of the key inner circle in the Bush administration promoting the war. Now he is back. This is significant.
Related perhaps. I heard an interview with a Porton Down scientist in which he said that the suggestion that the alleged nerve agent used at Salisbury was nonsense because security is so good there that nothing gets out. He did not say that the nerve agent could not have come from Porton Down because there is no such nerve agent exists there. Interesting choice of words.
Saying that would have landed him in prison.
It would contravene the Official Secrets Act.
Three words USA ..?
The United States and Uzbekistan have quietly negotiated and are expected to sign a bilateral agreement today to provide American aid in dismantling and decontaminating one of the former Soviet Union’s largest chemical weapons testing facilities, according to Defense Department and Uzbek officials.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon informed Congress that it intends to spend up to $6 million under its Cooperative Threat Reduction program to demilitarize the so-called Chemical Research Institute, in Nukus, Uzbekistan. Soviet defectors and American officials say the Nukus plant was the major research and testing site for a new class of secret, highly lethal chemical weapons called ”Novichok,” which in Russian means ”new guy.”
The agreement to help Uzbekistan clean up the plant is part of wide-ranging cooperation between Tashkent and Washington since the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan became independent in 1991. Yesterday, American and Uzbek officials opened a series of meetings in Tashkent, the Uzbek capital.
Uzbek officials said in interviews earlier this year that, only after their country became independent, did they come to understand the legacy of pollution that had resulted from their designated role as the Soviet Union’s major testing ground for chemical and biological weapons. ”We were shocked when we first learned the real picture,” said Isan M. Mustafoev, the Deputy Foreign Minister, in an interview in Tashkent last March.
Alarmed by the health and environmental impact of the Soviets’ use of Uzbekistan for the production and large-scale testing of illegal chemical and germ weapons, President Islam A. Karimov renounced weapons of mass destruction. Since then, his Government has worked closely with American defense officials, granting them access to sites whose counterparts in Russia are still off limits.
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The Chemical Research Institute, which is in a closed military complex in Nukus in the semi-autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan, is a case in point. Uzbek officials said they were still uncertain what kind of chemical agents, or how many, were made and tested here and elsewhere on Uzbek soil.
Russia has refused to disclose the information, Uzbek officials complain, and some international arms inspectors have said there is no proof that the Nukus plant was used to produce chemical weapons, now banned.
After touring the plant last year, inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Hague-based agency that oversees the 1993 treaty banning chemical weapons, concluded that the institute may have tested weapons but was not a production site.
Mr. Mustafoev, the Deputy Foreign Minister, scoffed at the finding, arguing there is plenty of evidence of such work at the lab that the Soviets built in 1986, closed to all but the Russian scientists who worked there, and abandoned only in 1992. American officials agreed, noting that a senior defector from the Soviet chemical weapons program, Vil S. Mirzayanov, who worked for more than 25 years in the Soviet chemical weapons program, has told them and later said publicly that the plant was built to produce batches, for testing, of Novichok binary weapons designed to escape detection by international inspectors.
Col. Islamov Abushair, the commander of the Uzbek military base in Nukus, highlighted what he called evidence of the secret Soviet chemical weapons program as he escorted this reporter recently on a rare tour of the plant, now closed. As the Soviet Union was crumbling, he explained, the more than 300 scientists at the plant packed up their deadly chemicals, their most sensitive equipment, manuals, and their test results and returned to their country.
Shards of brown glass laboratory bottles littered the plant’s floors and the icy air of an early spring rushed through broken windows. In one room stood a large test chamber into which smaller animals were placed for testing.
Another room contained treadmills for dogs and dozens of testing harnesses, to cram dogs’ muzzles into gas masks, leaving their bodies exposed. The device enabled scientists to expose either the dog’s skin, or lungs, to lethal chemical agents, Uzbek and American experts said.
”This is the monstrous rubbish they left us,” said Colonel Islamov, whose battalion of Uzbek soldiers now occupies the apartments in which elite Russian scientists and their families used to live.
Colonel Islamov and other Uzbek officials said their country lacked the money to decontaminate and convert the plant and stop the pollution caused by accidents, poor safety procedures and the disposal and dumping of chemical wastes and discarded weapons. A Pentagon official said yesterday that the United States would help Uzbekistan dismantle and decontaminate the complex ”to prohibit the proliferation of equipment from this pilot-scale production facility.”
RAF Mildenhall / US Airforce base in Suffolk is only 3 hours away from Salisbury ..
Nicky yes After the collapse of the Soviet Union Russia had the largest Boot sale on the planet.
Odessa had a longer flea market than Portabella it was five miles in length.
All the Soviet naval ships were stripped bare.
All very true indeed.. Dave, Meanwhile Fired FBI Director Andrew McCabe Fires Back at Donald Trump.. ?
Yes I saw that, I’m pretty sure the guys name is Gary Aitkenhead.
Interesting career – spent virtually his entire working life at Motorola first as a digital radio design engineer on systems such as TETRA then later progressing through management. Only started at Dstl in January this year and now finds himself the Porton Down front man on nerve agents.
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/garyaitkenhead
A safe pair of hands methinks. There are over 3,500 staff at Porton Down.
Before Motorola he worked for Sepura
https//www.sepura.com/company/company-overview/
https://www.gov.uk/government/people/gary-aitkenhead
A strange appointment which is as strange as this whole ‘story’.
PS Decca Aitkenhead, the Guardian journalist, born Jessica Aitkenhead in Wiltshire in 1971, has three brothers. An unusual surname. Are they perhaps related?
I worked during the Cold War at a U.S. Air Force signals intelligence facility in Berlin that was full of materials classified at the very high level of Top Secret Codeword. Searches of personnel leaving the facility were so perfunctory that it would have been very easy to smuggle out documents.
@ Duncan Spence March 24, 2018 at 19:23
Sure, security might well be extremely good – but that would not stop anything getting out if the PTB ordered it.
I am wondering.
Why didn’t any physician or medical scientist came up to question the sparse details of the status of the Skripals that were disclosed by Justice Williams. Especially I wonder, why the patients were sedated. To my amateurish knowledge that should be contraindicated in cases of compromised cholineric pathways in ARAS, the Ascending reticular activating system. The patient is either death by breakdown of functions of the pontine tegmentum or, if he is not, metabolism shouldn’t be tuned down, because ervery hour, the condition persists, more damage ist done to the cortex functions.
In severe cases the patient is in coma anyhow – no need to sedate. But Yulia is not in a coma, she “can communicate”, though “not in a meaningful way”, it is told.
Sedation might be indicated in the first phase of poisoning to stop symptoms of shock and pain of muscular contractions and convulsions. But these symptoms should fade with either revovering or demise of synaptic functions.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I doubt those thoughts are that far fetched, that those kind of questions wouldn’t arise. So I wonder.
My thoughts as well, see the earlier post on damage to RAS acetylcholine esterase. The bystander attending physician to Yulia has never been identified or come forward or reported symptoms, Dr. Steven Davies has gone silent or been disappeared after pooh-poohing the existence of secondary victims, the Russian ambassador was not allowed to visit (bringing their own staff physician) to see their citizen Yulia, and the Salisbury Hospital staff as a whole is reportedly under lock-down.
Further we have not the slightest idea if the detective was affected at all or just a play-actor, what his symptoms were if anyh, what treatment was given if any, how his blood and urine samples played out. His route of exposure … that’s never been disclosed. He was certainly not a first responder, certainly not a paramedic. I’m very skeptical he fished out Skirpal’s house keys from his pocket and searched it without a warrant, permission from the owner’s family, or forensics experts not securing the site immediately.
The park bench was obviously not contaminated in any meaningful way as it was just removed yesterday, the Skirpal’s clothes would have been removed at the hospital. no one there has exhibited the slightest concern. The tow truck driver who had to sit in Skirpal’s front seat at the car park to release the brake, shut the theft alarm, release the gear? When did they shut down the Mill Pub and Zuzzi’s — hundreds and hundreds of staff and patrons exposed but utterly unaffected.
Why all these clowns still running around two weeks later in hazmat suits? There’s no evidence left to collect. They still have no more dea what happened when than nutters on the internet: sprayed on bench, poisoned at brew pub, toxic rissole, door handles of car, car air intake, perfume bottle from Moscow, tainted bouquet, tainted gift?
This is theatre, not medicine. A show-trial is coming: Putin will be tried in abstentia. Four beefy policein hazmat suits will bring in the park bench. The jury, wearing military grade chem warfare suits, goes for a ride in the BMW320, following the route from graveside to bench to induced-coma bedside.
“Further we have not the slightest idea if the detective was affected at all or just a play-actor” – I have a very clear idea, that he was not an “play-actor”, because he wasn’t sealed from the public and, noteabliy, his family. More I’am not allowed to say …
“Further we have not the slightest idea if the detective was affected at all or just a play-actor”
The way he was discharged from the hospital, the timing of it and ‘his’ statement give a lot to ponder about.
OK someone may be able to shed some light on this for us. Has anyone read or heard of the symptoms of “flapping arms and staring at the sky” (eye witness reports) applying to anything other than BZ? It is possible that these symptoms apply to nerve agents but I thought it was interesting that these have been documented as specifically characteristic of BZ intoxication. Just a thought.
BZ is what?
maybe bs because it’s close to s/z on the keyboard ?
Denigration without googling (2nd suggestion, obvious, wiki) and an emoji? Ding ding. 🙂
BZ is a type of sofa, according to my googling. Why can’t you simply express yourself clearly?
Aren’t we all on the same side here? Enquiring minds etc. I was not being obtuse.
If I wiki BZ the first entries I get are
“Chemistry
Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, example of non-equilibrium thermodynamics
3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, an odorless military incapacitating agent with NATO code BZ
Benzimidazole, an aromatic compound and parasiticide
Benzodiazepines, a class of psychoactive drugs”
If you can’t work out which one of those fits *that* bill, you’re probably not going to know if anything else does.
BZ is 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate a super 48 hr LSD we of the Counterculture at the time tried to get our hands on some.See the film
Jacob’s Ladder.It was used in the Vietnam war against the Vietcong.
Exactly. If you’ve come across “Chemical Warfare Secrets Almost Forgotten” by MD James S. Ketchum you will notice initial symptom similarities. As to what subsequently happened? Well the Times had ‘Spy Death’ as a scrubbed headline. Were they misinformed or premature?
The UK has not stated that the nerve chemical was specifically A-234 (Novichok 5). They may know more by this time but my sense is they are still frantically looking around for a mother lode of powder or liquid that would allow them to do some lab chemistry, rather than just clinical blood tests for levels of acetylcholine esterase.
Contrary to DDTea, a well-known professor of synthetic organic chemistry at a major US university, Dr David B Collum of Cornell, 180 peer-reviewed publications at ResearchGate, writes on Mar 15 at https://twitter.com/DavidBCollum
“To all you fuckwitted nerve gas/geopolitical experts: the nerve agent attributed to the Rooskies is trivial to make. Stop saying it points to the Russians or it couldn’t be easily characterized. Maybe they did it; maybe they didn’t, but many would like it to look like Russia.”
If the shoe fits, wear it. Clinical enzymology is the topic in Salisbury. While I won’t summarize the 3,218 journal articles listed at PubMed under ‘acetylcholinesterase structure’ nor review the 290 known plant inhibitors of ACHE nor the 100+ variant Novichoks the Russians synthesized, the papers are mostly about the active site serine at position 200 in the catalytic triad of this enzyme and various compounds that bind there, for example:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=acetylcholinesterase+structure
Structures of human acetylcholinesterase in complex with pharmacologically important ligands.
Cheung, J et al (2012) J.Med.Chem. 55: 10282-10286
The key idea is that the covalent bond formed between the serine 200 hydroxyl and the phosphate of nerve agent can be spontaneously reversible, on perhaps a time scale of days depending on the particular side chains (usually shown just as R’s) of agent. (This contrasts with the chemistry of free phosphoserine which is stable for millennia.)
A new molecule of nerve agent left over in the plasma might come in to block the active site once again but Porton Down has antidote reagents (on hand for staff safety) that can soak up the excess for common insecticide or chemical warfare fluorphosphates.
The court order says: the Skripal’s red blood cells had clinically abnormal acetylcholine esterase activity and this did not improve over time, even in the presence of antidote reagents.
Natural products inhibitors of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase
José M. Barbosa FilhoI, et al Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia 2006
One of the most promising approaches for treating [Alzheimer] disease is to enhance the acetylcholine level in the brain using acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors. The present work reviews the literature on plants and plant-derived compounds inhibitors of enzyme acetylcholinesterase. The review refers to 309 plant extracts and 260 compounds isolated from plants, which are classified in appropriate chemical groups and model tested, and cites their activity. For this purpose 175 references were consulted.
I reckon US have something to do with this some how this is why? I have never liked the idea of US having bases in the UK even with nuclear weapons been shot out by the US and us getting the full force off it .. US aircraft are to freely allowed into the UK these days also even they have NSA satellites based in the UK too and this isn’t even being paranoid..
“The court order says: the Skripal’s red blood cells had clinically abnormal acetylcholine esterase activity and this did not improve over time, even in the presence of antidote reagents.” – Would you please deliver your secret source or stop lying blatantly.
“lying blatantly” likely in the case of someone who obviously knows his biochemistry? You’d do better to say he is wrong and why.
The only need here is to demonstrate that there are doubts, in order to question May’s unjustified certainty.
There is no word of “clinically abnormal acetylcholine esterase activity” in Justice Williams ruling.
David Collum isn’t really well known unless you’re an organic chemist. Let’s be honest: no chemist is. But to be fair: he does high quality work and I appreciate his beautiful mechanistic studies.
You got on of the key ideas correct, about the OP molecule forming a strong covalent bond with the catalytic Serine 200 residue (there’s actually a catalytic triad down in that pocket, which different nerve agents interact with somewhat differently) by displacement of a leaving group.
The second key point that you forgot, though that the lipophilic side chain (isopropyl in sarin, pinacolyl in soman, tetramethylguanidyl in some novichoks..) is labile as well. When that cleaves, it leaves behind a serinylphosphate anion that is resistant to nucleophilic attack by oxime reactivators.
Soman undergoes this “aging” reaction rather quickly (it appears to be related to carbocation stability of the R group). Novichoks supposedly share this feature as well. Thus there is a time window in which enzyme reactivators are effective.
One additional point: Collum is an academic and it seems to give him tunnel vision.
it’s disingenuous to suggest that the sole barrier to using these nerve agents is their synthesis. The toxicological profile, physical properties, and spectral characteristics of Mirzayanov’s reported agents are not in the public literature. These would all have to be determined. It was not generally known that these are even effective nerve agents (i.e., not environmentally labile). This would also have to be studied. Synthesizing the agents and testing them–safely–would be a major R&D undertaking requiring significant expenditures and capital investment to handle such high potency compounds. Choosing the one fit for the present assassination attempts (given that there are allegedly hundreds of variations) could only stem from such efforts.
If just being able to synthesize something were the sole challenge to using it, then commercializing a new pharmaceutical would be a trivial task.
Breaking News.
The Crown Office has received a European arrest warrant for Clara Ponsati, a Catalan minister who now lives in Scotland.
This could get interesting.
Link please.
Meanwhile.
“Spain’s Supreme Court ruled 25 Catalan leaders should be tried for rebellion, embezzlement or disobeying the state.
Convictions could result in up to 30 years in prison.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43523811
The fascist state of Spain which already hold political prisoners in western Europe, is intent on imprisoning those who seek a democratic and independent Catalonia.
The EU may not have the powers to deal with Spanish oppression but the UN could do something about illegally held political prisoners, held in a fascist state.
Found a link no need now.
Well they did break the law.
I’m sure a keen europhile such as yourself will approve of European arrest warrants and will support this one being enforced.
“Well they did break the law”.
Found them guilty already have you Fred?
In the run-up to the 2015 election one of the handicaps David Cameron had to finesse was the fact that net migration to the UK was three times as high as he had promised it would be. Remarkably, none of the opprobrium this failure provoked brought forth the name of Theresa May, the cabinet minister actually entrusted with bringing migration down. Then, as now, it was as if the icy Home Secretary had a dark magic that warded off all critical scrutiny.
The fact that her lead role in this fiasco went unmentioned reflects Mrs May’s clever, all-consuming efforts to burnish her image with a view to become prime minister. After all, Mrs May’s tenure as Home Secretary has been notably unsuccessful. Its abundant failures include a succession of derelictions that have left Britain’s borders and coastline at least as insecure as they were in 2010, and which mean that British governments still rely on guesswork to estimate how many people enter and leave the country.
People find this hard to credit because she exudes determination. Compared to many of her cabinet colleagues she has real gravitas. And few who follow British politics would deny that she is a deadly political infighter. Indeed Theresa May is to Westminster what Cersei Lannister is to Westeros in Game of Thrones: no one who challenges her survives unscarred; the welfare of her realm is a much lower priority than her craving for power.
Take the UK Border Force. Despite the increased terror threat, it was already a dangerously underfunded and demoralised agency when Mrs May announced in April that its budget was to be cut. Then in May, after two people-smugglers’ vessels were found sinking off the Kent coast, the public discovered that the Force has only three cutters protecting 7,700 miles of coastline. Italy by contrast has 600 boats patrolling its 4722 miles.
Considering the impression Mrs May gives of being serious about security, it’s astonishing that she has also allowed the UK’s small airfields to go unpatrolled — despite their attraction for traffickers of people, drugs and arms, and the urgings of the security services.
Then there is the failure to establish exit checks at all the country’s airports and ports. These were supposed to be in place by March 2015.
Unfortunately the Border Force isn’t the only organisation under Mrs May’s control that is manifestly unfit for purpose. Recent years have seen a cavalcade of Home Office decisions about visas and deportations that suggest a department with a bizarre sense of the national interest. The most infamous episode was the refusal of visas to Afghan interpreters who served with the British forces in Afghanistan – as Lord Guthrie said, a national shame. Mrs May has kept so quiet about this and other scandals – such as the collapse of the E-borders IT system, at cost of almost a billion pounds – that you might imagine someone else was in charge the Home Office.
It is not just a matter of the odd error. Yvette Cooper pointed out in 2013 that despite Coalition rhetoric, the number of people refused entry to the UK had dropped by 50%, the backlog of finding failed asylum seekers had gone up and the number of illegal immigrants deported had gone down. You’d almost imagine that Mrs May was so busy defending her turf and polishing her image that there was no time left to embark on the major reforms her department obviously needs.
The reputation for effectiveness that Mrs May enjoys mostly derives from a single, endlessly cited event: the occasion in 2014 when she delivered some harsh truths to a conference of the Police Federation. Unfortunately this was an isolated incident that, given the lack of any subsequent (or previous) effort at police reform, seems to have been intended mainly for public consumption.
In general Mrs May has avoided taking on the most serious institutional problems that afflict British policing. These include, among other things, a disturbing willingness by some forces to let public relations concerns determine their policing priorities, widespread overreliance on CCTV, a common propensity to massage crime numbers, the extreme risk aversion manifested during the London riots, and the preference for diverting police resources to patrol social media rather than the country’s streets.
There is also little evidence that Mrs May has paid much attention to the failure of several forces to protect vulnerable girls from the ethnically-motivated sexual predation seen in Rotherham and elsewhere. Nor, despite her proclaimed feminism, has Mrs May done much to ensure that the authorities protect girls from certain ethnic groups from forced marriage and genital mutilation. But again, Mrs May has managed to evade criticism for this.
When considering her suitability for party leadership, it’s also worth remembering Mrs May’s notorious “lack of collegiality”. David Laws’ memoirs paint a vivid picture of a secretive, rigid, controlling, even vengeful minister, so unpleasant to colleagues that a dread of meetings with her was something that cabinet members from both parties could bond over.
Unsurprisingly, Mrs May’s overwhelming concern with taking credit and deflecting blame made for a difficult working relationship with her department, just as her propensity for briefing the press against cabinet colleagues made her its most disliked member in two successive governments.
It is possible that Mrs May’s intimidating ruthlessness could make her the right person to negotiate with EU leaders. However, there’s little in her record to suggest she possesses either strong negotiation skills or the ability to win allies among other leaders.
It’s surely about time – and not too late – for conservatives to look behind Mrs May’s carefully-wrought image and consider if she really is the right person to lead the party and the country. There’s a vast gulf between being effective in office, and being effective at promoting yourself; it’s not one that Theresa May has yet crossed.
Seems she never learns ..https://reaction.life/theresa-may-failed-home-secretary-bad-choice-pm/
Lets face it they both don’t have a clue and strong and stable my ass! plus they couldn’t muster this sort of plan if they tried .. fact..
£600million: the cost of Boris
Since first being elected as Mayor of London in 2008, Johnson has only ever been a part-time Mayor, as he has used City Hall as the launch pad for his own political ambitions.
And it has been ordinary Londoners who have suffered, whether through a lack of any proper, thought-through policies on infrastructure, Johnson’s stubborn refusal to negotiate public transport changes with the trades unions – causing transport misery for millions of commuters in the capital – or through the mismanagement of the city’s police resources.
“The Boris Johnson Mayoralty has been characterised by a series of scandals, wasting millions of pounds of Londoners’ money,” said Christian Wolmar, one of Labour’s short-listed candidates for selection to stand in next year’s London elections. “And yet he has got away with it by presenting himself as a friendly buffoon. He is nothing of the sort and should be made accountable for these terrible losses.”
Research by the Wolmar for London campaign team has uncovered a list of his worst excesses:
THE BORIS BUS: £300m
This has been a scandal from beginning to end.
London did not need an entirely new type of bus, especially with a back platform which meant that it would not be possible for the design to be used anywhere else in the world. The very concept of hop-on hop-off was misplaced and has now been all but abandoned for the bad idea that it was.
Last week, the London Assembly finally discovered that, despite pouring hundreds of millions of pounds into the Boris Bus’s development and design, taxpayers do not own the rights to the Mayor’s “iconic” New Routemaster.
Intellectual property rights for the bus remain with the manufacturers until Transport for London has ordered 1,000 vehicles. Ad TfL, having forked out for 800 of the vehicles, at a cost of more than £250 million, has no plans to buy any more.
Meanwhile, Londoners are still having to pay for Johnson’s expensive idea of having “customer assistants” on those routes which operate using the rear doors: each assistant costs around £30,000 per year to employ and support. They can’t operate as old-style bus conductors, of course, because London’s buses are now cash-less.
Boris’s “New Bus for London” was claimed to be “the greenest, cleanest” bus ever designed. Yet there are growing doubts about the difference between the bus’s performance trials data and the reality out on the roads of our city. Claims of the bus operating at 12 miles per gallon of fuel seem exaggerated, with some reports that in operation, the buses struggle to achieve half that figure – with all the expense that involves.
And there is a good reason why “the greenest, cleanest” bus is using more expensive and polluting fuel than Londoners had been lead to believe by the London Mayor.
The Boris Buses which were supposed to be environmentally friendly hybrids, operating off electric motors for much of the time. In fact, many have been operating solely in diesel mode, making them less clean than other buses, and regarded as a danger on the road by some drivers.
THE GARDEN BRIDGE: £30m
Johnson has promised at least £30m of public money towards the £175m project, to match £30m of Department for Transport funds, even though there is no transport logic behind it and very little public support. As opponents say, “it is neither a bridge, nor a garden”, but an expensive vanity project.
THE ESTUARY AIRPORT: £10m
Another Boris Johnson vanity project. The Mayor spent millions on a scheme which was never going to be viable and was rejected by the Davies Commission, as had widely been expected.
THE CABLEWAY: £24m
Another white elephant which even the usually supportive Evening Standard has reported has just four regular users of the cable car between Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks. The scheme is unlikely to cover even its operational costs. As with much of what the Tory Mayor promised, there was supposed to be no public money, but TfL has admitted it contributed £24m.
OLYMPIC STADIUM: £230m
The 2012 Games showed London in the best possible light. The planning of the sporting infrastructure for future use has shown it at its worst. Not all the blame for the on-costs can be laid at Johnson’s door over this: it was his fellow Tory, Lord Coe, who advocated the original design, for what was effectively the world’s first $1 billion disposable stadium. But it has been on Johnson’s watch as London Mayor that £272 million has been spent, since the 2012 Games, on making the stadium fit for future, multi-sport use, and it has been under our Tory Mayor that one football club, which has a Tory peer as its chair, has been given a massive financial advantage over London’s other clubs, as West Ham will pay less-than-cost £2.5m in annual rent and contribute to the stadium’s reconfiguration costs of just £15m – or less than the price of a Championship striker. And once again, Boris has left the London tax-payer to pick up the bulk of the bill.
THE ‘NEW’ CRYSTAL PALACE: £4.5m
It is not just in spending money that Boris Johnson has been a costly Mayor. He has been very keen to “give away” public property to overseas developers who manage to appeal to his vanity, too. Take the Chinese scheme in south London, to rebuild Paxton’s Crystal Palace. Here, Johnson wanted to hand over more than one-third of a listed public park. The planning blight created by Johnson trying to inflict this hare-brained scheme cost the local council considerable sums to administer (estimated as at least £150,000), while local residents and park users saw years of their hard work as volunteers trampled over by the Mayor, and carefully negotiated Lottery funding schemes worth £4.5m for much-needed improvements in the park lost because of the uncertainty created.
DEVELOPER DEALS: Incalculable
This is impossible to quantify, but Johnson has repeatedly handed developers generous deals, often with public assets, while demanding very little to benefit the existing communities in return, and delivering very little affordable or social housing. He has also encouraged luxury developments that have used up land that would otherwise be used for social purposes. This has probably cost London hundreds of millions over the past seven years.
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: Incalculable
There have been more strikes since Johnson took over because of his failure to negotiate with unions and his aggressive stance over ticket closures. The thinktank Cebr puts a conservative estimate on the cost to the London economy of £10m per day each time transport workers in the capital go on strike – and yet as London Mayor Boris Johnson has refused to meet with the trades unions to negotiate settlements to disputes. This has been reckless as well as irresponsible, but it is what we have come to endure of London’s part-time Mayor.
http://www.wolmarforlondon.co.uk/600million_the_cost_of_boris.html
Without doubt, this is by far the most comprehensive appraisal of SCL / Cambridge Analytica and its practices I have come across to date:-
REVEALED: Facebook data harvester’s links to US and UK counter-extremism campaigns
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/revealed-facebook-data-harvester-scl-links-us-uk-counter-extremism-efforts-1922065997
A bit like the’Sorted’ by MI5: How UK government sent British-Libyans to fight Gaddafi / Manchester Area Attack .. Below back at it’s finest http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sorted-mi5-how-uk-government-sent-british-libyans-fight-gaddafi-1219906488
Nicky,
Egads! I was dimly aware of some of those issues – not the wider ‘environment’ of them per se. If in one sense, getting rid of one’s ‘trash’ could be suggested as being nothing new, or a good idea even – the dimwits in government clearly choose to overlook the ‘what happens’ if these people do not dutifully die in the course of engagement and want to come home to mummy.
The response by gov is almost palpable at times. Er….okay…oh, I know, let’s put them at the top of the social housing list – that should solve everything – then they won’t turn on us. Thereby further ensuring that the good folks of this country are even more annoyed, and worried etc. Worse still is that some of those ‘combatants are known to work in the NHS – so can you imagine being in that situation – feeling ‘vulnerable’ for being in hospital, followed by the doctor/nurse etc saying – would you like to see my holiday snaps?
Totally agree with you .. SR
SR. Thx. When you search the term “SCL Group” and go to the website there is interesting information about its ops and locations.
https://sclgroup.cc/home
DDTea
“I guarantee that portion Down has more information about the nerve agent used against the Skripals
than they are willing to disclose at this time.”
How can you “guarantee” this DDTea?
And why would PD withhold information “at this time” ?