An interesting facet of Theresa May’s “hostile environment” policy, aka institutionalised racism, is that Yulia Skripal will have to pay for her NHS emergency treatment because she was admitted to hospital. When the government announced its clampdown on use of the NHS by foreigners, including migrants and overseas students, it ended the provision of free emergency treatment for non-citizens in the UK, at the point of hospital admission – which in a real emergency is often required.
I could see the argument for charging “aliens” for attending A & E with a broken thumb, but not charging them for a massive heart attack. But the Tories do it the other way round. It is worth noting that in Scotland the Scottish government, which controls the Scottish NHS, has not implemented this Tory policy.
This policy was instituted in April 2015 directly as a considered part of the “hostile environment” for migrants. Reciprocal public healthcare agreeements with Russia and 16 other countries were cancelled unilaterally by the Tory government in 2016.
Of course, I do not doubt Yulia Skripal – whose whereabouts and freedom of action are unknown and who patently did not write the police statements issued in her name – will not be charged for her treatment, unlike others admitted in life-threatening situations. But think for a moment of the dreadful cases of heartache to other individuals and families that must have been caused by this cruel policy, all in the name of “discouraging” migrants. As with the case of the Windrush generation, I do not doubt there are scores of unheard stories of the effects of Tory callousness waiting to come to light. I am glad the Skripal case gave me the chance to highlight the issue.
Meanwhile in Salisbury we are going to have a great propaganda theatre of destruction, as places which people were allowed to frequent for weeks after the attack are demolished, to eradicate a strange liquid that is ten times more deadly than VX but at the same time ineffective, and is liquid but cannot be diluted, except its dilution was why it did not kill anybody, and which cannot be washed away, except if you got it on your clothes you are perfectly safe if you wash them, and which made hundreds of people sick except there were only three of them.
All of those contradictory statements are from the official government narrative on Salisbury as delivered over the last couple of months through the state and corporate media. It is beyond me how they expect anyone to believe their utterly incoherent nonsense.
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Winchester?
Without referring to a map (or more helpful, co-ordinates) which Cathedral is furthest North?
Hi Craig, in your article you mean the town of Busyliars not Winchester!
Yes was confusing my cathedrals.
Bitcoin / litecoin donation! Not all of us want to have our details linked to you on gchq’s naughty or nice dashboard 🙂
I second that
You’re almost certainly linked already! Dammit, so am I!
Yes, but if it wasn’t for us haystacks things would be much harder for the needles. Everyone should get linked, it’s all the rage!
I am Spartacus!
Well said, Craig. The Tories are completely unanchored from humanity, rendering their claims to have humanitarian concern for the Syrian people breathtaking. As regards the unfortunate Skripals, does anybody know where they are? They seem to have been Bermuda Triangled.
Think it’s a badge of honour i’ve just had a comment deleted on the Guardian, raising concern about the Skripals in a very reasonable way.
The comment had attracted many upticks and replies b4 the Guardian censored it, so know a lot of ppl saw it. I am one of the influential commentators on the Guardian, know the editorial team would happily rip out my throat with their teeth =)
I do think moderation in the Guardian is reaching ridiculous levels, I replied to a post yesterday, the post was not confrontational, neither rude nor abusive and my reply was intended to add to it, using facts that I am privy to. By the time I pressed post, the original had been deleted by moderators because… etc., etc.
I immediately went to the head of the thread and posted that I thought there little point in either contributing to the debate or indeed reading what others have written, since it was impossible to know what views had been purposely edited or censored.
Frankly, I’m just about done with the online Guardian.
Is it “racist” to object to health tourism? Is it “racist” to advise visitors that they need to arrange health insurance to cover medical costs in the UK should they become ill? Is it “racist” to insist that people enter a country legally? Is it “racist” to suggest that blacks in the USA will be disproportionally disenfranchised by an ID requirement at voting stations (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrBxZGWCdgs)?
Is it “racist” to ask these questions?
Is it racist for a friend to go to France for instant treatment, after being told to wait three month for a consultant to only look at his stage 2 hernia? is it racists to let some visitors swoon by all controls and go straight to Oxford Street do some shopping with their entourage, whilst Mr. Subotnick has to wait in line for his Moscow visa to be approved?
And yes it is racist to disenfranchise US voters just as it is racist for The PM to destroy the landing cards and deliberately make the sons and daughters of the Windrush generation persona non grata when they have lived here, worked here and paid taxes here for decades.
and no, questions are questions, nothing else.
It is racist to assume that somebody requiring emergency admission to hospital is engaged in health tourism. It is racist to refuse to save someone in an immediate life-threatening situation based on their citizenship.
“It is racist to assume that somebody requiring emergency admission to hospital is engaged in health tourism.”
No, exactly the opposite: just as in the video I linked to viz. black voter disenfranchisement in the US (which nevermind obviously didn’t bother to watch before commenting), it is racist to assume that they aren’t (the logic is counter-intuitive for liberals, but illustrative of their mental processes).
“It is racist to refuse to save someone in an immediate life-threatening situation based on their citizenship.”
No, it is cold-hearted.
Yeah, right, a “racist” who reads Chomsky, Althusser, New Left Review, etc. Who’s the one with the ‘cognitive dissonance’.
Indeed it all smacks of racism, and those whom doubt it is racist, are patently in denial of their own racism and being rank racists!
Human rights are not the pusillanimous; freedom of choice (you can buy anything, so long as you have the cash) and freedom of expression (you can say anything so long as you don’t run into theatre and shout fire, or anything against a certain category of people).
Never mind the right to shelter, right to food, right to health and right to be free of pain, and right to live in peace and not in fear of endemic crime, pernicious and systemic racism or debt slavery! Are the other “human rights” that somehow never ever even get hinted at.
Seems strange to charge Yulia Skripal NHS fees without offering Russia the opportunity to repatriate her and treat her back home. 20 years ago ski insurance would repatriate you home from Switzerland to be treated on the NHS (I led a party in Verbier where a member was skied into from behind, doing her knee in. She was stabilised then flown home and taken to Mayday hospital in Croydon to complete surgery and recuperation).
Clearly UKGov does not want Skripal to return to Russia.
Perhaps Russia has no antdotes to Novichok A-234?
Strange to develop a weapon but no antidote. Most unusual……
The question should be whether Yulia had travel health insurance. In my experience, insurance companies will move heaven and earth to avoid paying out on any claim if they can. I wonder if there is a Novichuk/Novichuk-like exception in her policy and this has been an elaborate ploy to dodge liability 🙂
Perhaps should check to see if someone insured her against poisoning just before her visit. If so, this might indicate that a false flag has occurred in Salisbury. 🙂
Mr. Murray, maybe off topic, but it is rather disappointing to me from the beginning of the Skripal case, the lack of interest of the Russian government in pursuing access to a Russian citizen ” Yulia Skripal”. If the Russian government believe in their innocence regarding the incident, they should be all over the media making demands for such access, or at least, demand that a third party; UN, Red Cross, to have access to the Yulia. Any thoughts ?
“If the Russian government believe in their innocence regarding the incident, they should be all over the media making demands for such access, or at least, demand that a third party; UN, Red Cross, to have access to the Yulia. Any thoughts?”
They are. You must be watching the media that does not allow this kind of reporting.
Mr. Goss,
Though sympathetic to your main point, I do find that Russia’s legal efforts in this area have seemed somewhat anemic (not saying this is an indication of guilt). UK is violating international convention and national law on consular access, I gather, and arguably RF citizen’s rights were clearly traduced during High Court proceeding that misrepresented family connections–even after the fact, this should be brought to the Court’s attention. Is a writ of habeas corpus an option here? Then there’s the possibility that an RF citizen has been kidnapped, assaulted, drugged and perhaps poisoned with a CW agent, held incommunicado, and that there have been serial abuses of her rights during medical care. The hospital staff needs to be deposed, and if there are national security letters attached, this also needs to be formalized. I’m mystified we aren’t hear more of this, or formal legal challenges to a some weird OPCW interpretations of their own statutes, formal representations over violations of UN Charter–have they seen the legal opinion on R2P that Tom Watson commissioned on behalf of Labour?
In short, where are the lawyers? There is work here for a decade.
Paul,
You make some good points. I suspect there maybe some collusion here (unseen and unspoken) between British and Russian Authorities. The entire thing looks like a media show to me, trying to interest The General Public in World War III, whilst almost no one is the slightest bit interested, nor takes any notice of these clowns on TV. They may well all believe their own propaganda, whilst there was a 100+ missile shooting show, which failed to harm anyone.
My analysis, may not be correct, and London may be nuked this evening, and soon we will all be dead.
However you want to see it, the British Government has mad a laughing stock out of itself, but maybe they did it on purpose.
I find it hard to believe they are ‘THAT’ Thick. They are the same generation as me, and will have had a very good education.
“In short, where are the lawyers? There is work here for a decade.”
Are you after some lucrative employment, knowing it is all a load of nonsense, and none of the “actors”, will make the slightest difference to anything, as they are just a bunch of clowns in a circus freak side show?
Tony
Good perspectives, Tony. I have to think the RF, as you say, is not pedal to the metal on this. The why of it, on their side, is less clear to me. Or the “how could they possibly” do less than their utmost at this point? But clearly much beneath the surface look at this iceberg.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think there is any collusion – I think Russia has tried every avenue and been stonewalled. The same will be if they start Court action – the Govt will get it stopped on the grounds of national security. It seems where this case is concerned, the OPCW are neither impartial or truthful. They haven’t even followed their own procedures and allowed the UK to block Russia being part of a joint investigation. I guess the Russian’s might be totally fed up with dealing with the UK.
@BB
Sergey Skripal’s 90-years old mother lives in Russia with her grand-daughter Viktoria (Yulia’s cousin). UK denies a visa for Viktoria, the closest relative and lawful representative of Sergey’s mother. Viktoria also sent a letter to Theresa May, asking permission to visit her unckle or at least her cousin – no answer.
Commenter on MoA has said this:
The Investigative Committee of Russia has published a video covering the information it has collected so far while investigating the Skripal case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D6Z_yGEFSY (in Russian). Three interesting tidbits stand out:
1:40–2:10 Yulia’s movements have been traced from the moment she got into a Moscow taxi to the moment she boarded the plane to London. Taxi driver’s identity has been established, as well as the identities of all passengers who traveled on the same flight as Yulia; none of them have experienced any health issues. The video shows CCTV footage of Yulia going through the airport.
4:20–5:10 The British claimed that Skripals had no relatives to represent their interests. This claim allowed the authorities to obtain the court permission to take blood samples from unconscious Skripals. However, it was found that Skripals had two relatives living in Yaroslavl oblast: 89-year old mother of Sergei Skripal, Elena Skripal, and his niece, Viktoria Skripal. We already know that. Here’s what’s new: on April 5, Elena Skripal has granted a power of attorney to Viktoria Skripal allowing her to represent Elena’s interests in Russia and the UK (shown in the video at 4:43). That means that the UK government is not allowing a legal representative of Sergei’s mother to visit him.
7:29–8:21 According to Viktor Holstov, the head of the Center for Analytical Research on Conventions for the Prohibition of Chemical and Biological Weapons at the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade, a 2009 US patent evaluating possible antidotes to organophosphorous agents states that the antidotes to nerve agents such as sarin and VX are ineffective against Novichok-class agents. To arrive at such a conclusion, obviously, Novichok-class agents had to be synthesized in the U.S.
‘Visiting England’ will be interpreted by most as Visiting the UKGB&NI.
Like the stone age imagery.
I had a elderly family member from overseas fall ill a year ago during a visit and requiring admission to A&E and then admitted onto a ward for a few days. At A&E they asked for her passport before treating her. Even though she had insurance from home (an entry requirement) this failed to cover the condition. She had excellent care in the hospital, of course – while no-one was able to to indicate what costs what. For any “service” you get charged for people are supposed to have an idea of how much they will be charged. She was both unable to know the costs in advance and to exercise any choice. Clinically this was quite right, its not a privatized service: The NHS runs on medical need rather than payment. But this gives huge anomaly when it also has to treat on the basis of medical need but charge on the basis of nationality. The doctor treating acknowledged that they just gave the best treatment and they had given a Nigerian a heart transplant once knowing full well that he couldn’t afford the charges for that after. I’d imagine things have been made more difficult for doctors since then. However, after discharge we were presented with a bill close to four grand from the hospital, who were obliged to report any non-payment to the immigration authorities. As this relative was retired and on limited income the costs fell on her UK family – us – in any case. I complained to the hospital who replied they were correctly following their policies, which they were, somehow, unable to copy to me. The hospital quickly passed the bill onto a debt collection agency CCI Credit Management Limited who sent us a latter which explicitly links to immigration status and states that an unpaid bill is reported to the Border Agency which, the letter states, may mean “you may be detained” ! I complained bitterly about this and eventually to the highest level – my complaint also found that the hospital had also managed to make numerous “keying” errors in producing the bill including putting one item in for £1,125 when it should have been £112.50. And ultimately the final reduced bill was finally paid by us – here in the UK.
I was in a very similar situation with my mother in law.
I too believe she was overcharged for what assistance provided: not an inpatient, ECG, one blood test and no more than 15 minutes of doctors time = £1800.
Still ongoing. Very disappointed with the whole affair.
It’s worth noting Russia is still party to European Social Charter (not to be confused with any EU provision) which might be useful on the day just don’t expect it to be of any use in retrospect.
I am liamodonohue86 on twitter.
I suggest you argue every point and go into the complaints procedure. It took me 4 months and quite a considerable amount of correspondence, I’d ask for specific documents relating to policies and pricing. In one reply I was told that pricing up is particularly difficult “This is a very complicated process which can vary from patient to patient for what appears, on the face of it, to be the same care and treatment … costs of care can vary hugely.” – which means at least for those prepared to argue that a lot of the bill is potentially negotiable. A consultant gets paid what 100K a year (2K a week, say 35 hours a week, fifteen minutes of which is about £15 – all guesstimates and not including overheads, pension, holiday pay, but you see the point), and ECG was the unit cost of £112.5 – that they mis-keyed as £1,125. I made an offer, under the re-adjusted price – which was accepted.
Try the US privatised health system for their charges. You would be shocked. Most personal bankruptcies in the US are due to inability to pay medical bills, either because of insufficient health insurance cover or no cover at all outside the ‘Medicaid’ system.
Also compare to UK veterinary bills. Into £thousands for orthopaedic operations. £80 for annual vaccinations. etc
My daughters partner became ill in America while visiting relatives. He went to A&E where he had a blood test, chest x-ray and was diagnosed within 20mins…the bill came to over $7000. If visiting America make sure you have excellent insurance.
So weird to know about any cost of such a simple tests.
I do any medical screening including blood/urine test/x-ray/cardiogram free-of charge simply on my theurapist’s prescribtion (e.x. if I have high temperature or pain in throat or chest). It also includes free consultations of any expert in what could be found suspicious. My city block’s clinics is nearby porch.
I get paid treatment or screeneng only in case I personally ask for this, e.x I’m going to attend a swimming pool allowing only persons with certain medical papers.
Isn’t it what we pay our social taxes for?
Maybe you have a suggestions as to how the system might otherwise work? I think it’s worth remembering that hospital treatment isn’t free in the UK or cheap — it’s paid for by those of us who pay taxes.
I think most people would agree that people on holiday here or visiting for whatever reason should pay one way or another, ideally through insurance.
I don’t think that’s unreasonable but, then, I’m a huge fan of our NHS which I pay towards and am generally opposed to the something for nothing culture that seems to prevail in discussions like this.
It’s not like the system we have would demand payment before giving treatment which would potentially raise ethical questions, not in life threatening situations anyway.
It is quite simple really. Of course people travelling should have insurance. But in the event of something acute and actually life threatening developing while they are here to somebody without life insurance (a tiny percentage of illnesses) of course we should help them whether they can pay or not. That is not the same as someone arriving with chronic illness or suffering something not life-threatening.
“Maybe you have a suggestions as to how the system might otherwise work? I think it’s worth remembering that hospital treatment isn’t free in the UK or cheap — it’s paid for by those of us who pay taxes.”
Total utter nonsense!
NHS is a value add that the so called industry in UK are taking for granted and as with the causal tax dodgers stealing 88 billion pounds a year getting away with not paying a penny for the essential health care of the workers, without whom the industry would be making diddly swat profits.
But memes galore the inadequate response of we pay takes and tourists don’t is enough to qualify any communal garden curmudgeonly racist to satiate their lust for pouring venom and hatred for the failures that they patently are. For without such a dispensation of bile how can they live in their misery?
NHS is a value add to the whole of the economy of UK! It is not a burden on the tax payers. The current bums rush to privatise it, is the policies of the insurance companies that are running this country.
Tourists pay taxes; VAT on anything that they buy or use, so given the numbers of the tourists paying VAT and numbers of them needing any medical attention evens out! Whilst they keep people in hospitality industry in profits and jobs.
‘NHS is a value add to the whole of the economy of UK! It is not a burden on the tax payers.’
Very well said fedup. The Welfare State was set up to get people fit and well and into work and to be productive members of society. It was, and still is, a social good working for the common good. Those who say it’s had its day will rue the day it’s gone, even if only because the cost of their own care will hit them hard (strangely the cost of paying for everyone else’s care, as well as one’s own, hits less hard).
To be honest I wouldn’t waste too much sympathy on Yulia Skripal. The fact that her fiance has now “disappeared” – despite all the huffing and puffing from the Establishment press that he is secretly one of Putin’s most deadliest spies – suggests to me that both Yulia and him are in on this up to their necks. Probably it was the only way they could think of to escape from the wrath of the mother-in-law.
The British Government does a lot of terrible things – possibly it would kidnap people – but its technically easier and less of a headache legally just to give them a large wad of cash to cooperate.
For some long days I have been worried about Yulia Skripal ever finding her way back into a normal life following the psy-op (I’m guessing CIA with MI6 complicity). This morning on Sophie & Co she interviewed Karel Koecher, an ex-Czechoslovakian spy who penetrated the CIA. He says the same.
“SS:Do you think that the British will ever allow the Russians to meet the Skripals?
KK: I don’t think so.
SS:Why?
KK: Well, because the whole thing is so suspicious, you know, you cannot know what he is going to say. And maybe Skripal himself would not be willing to do what they order him to do. He is obviously a traitor, not a very reliable person, not a moral person. So even if he agrees to say what they tell him to say he might change his mind when he is speaking on camera. I don’t think they would ever allow him to meet with the Russians.”
https://www.rt.com/shows/sophieco/424841-spy-game-cold-war/
It is very sad that a young woman should have a normal life taken from her because of political hatred of Russia. In the Neocon-Zionist media we get anti-Simitesm (deliberately misspelt) rammed down our throats till we’re constipated by it. The problem is not anti-Simitesm – it is anti-Russianism.
You’re assuming Yulia is an innocent figure in whatever has been going on.
Her Dad’s dodgy, her boyfriend is allegedly dodgy, her cousin is banned from the UK (how did Yulia know her cousin would not be permitted into the UK)
Yulia was allowed to come to the UK by both the UK and Russia, she has visited before in the past few years.
Her Dad made visits to Europe and the Middle East.
And then they went off the Radar at 9:15 the morning of the 4th March.
Allegedly appearing again at c 4 pm at the bench but all CCTV of that time (an hour plus) is being kept secret from the public.
And she’s Russian.
“You’re assuming Yulia is an innocent figure in whatever has been going on.”
We used to have a basic tenet of English justice whereby a person was considered innocent until proven guilty. All that changed with the so-called “war on terror” and Talha Ahsan (and others) was banged away for long years before being extradited to the USA, locked in solitary confinement for more than twelve months, and only released by admitting to a crime he never committed. Call me old-fashioned but I still believe in the other kind of justice Charles.
Guilty until proved innocent would be so much more convenient for the government. I suppose we are being got used to the idea.
Thank you very much, John Goss, that’s Baron’s sentiment, too, it beggars belief that Julia, a human being who’s never been charged with anything, not to say found guilty of anything in the court of law, has been treated more harshly than an animal. And not one single figure of importance, religious or civil, has pointed that out because of what?
They are all too busy, Baron, in covering up their historic child sexual abuse.
She is of course legally presumed innocent. Yet at the same time we simply don’t have enough evidence to hypothesize anything about her role in the whole affair, or whether she is even alive.
All I know about her is from her VK account and one telephone call she made to her cousin Viktoria. To me she seems like any ordinary Facebook or other social media user. And the fact that she accessed her account three days after she was allegedly poisoned shows it was one of the first things she thought of before they took away her access. The doctors and nursing staff at Salisbury District Hospital are culpable in not giving her the health-care and follow-up support she is in dire need of now. Your hypothesis about the state of her health or whether she is still alive is an important observation. They can vanish her just as easily as they did Dr David Kelly.
https://johnplatinumgoss.wordpress.com/2018/04/09/fears-for-the-skripals/
I agree with you John, the Doctors and Senior Administrators treating both Skripals know the rights of their patients have been taken away, including Consular access [the Bilateral agreement and Vienna convention] also access to family and friends via the Hospedia telephone system which operates in the Salisbury Hospital Trust to every bedside and is available for relatives and friends to ring in, and for patients to ring out. BUT NOT THE SKRIPALS.
Both Skripals are being held hostage and incommunicado by the British state, They cannot contact relatives or friends, nor can relatives and friends contact them, this is cruel, and a kind of psychological torture and is also in breach of the Human Rights Act 1998, what kind of inhuman beasts these must be not to want to contact their relatives, including the 89 year old Grandmother, in truth it is Amber Rudd at the Home office and the rest of the Government who are the lying monsters behind this charade. Mr Justice Williams said at the High Court hearing recently “decision makers must look at their [i.e. patients] welfare in the widest sense, not just medical, but social and psychological” indeed the NHS Charter states the interaction of relatives and friends plays a vital part in helping their recovery.
“A spokesman said: “Ofcom granted us use of the 070 number range to enable every bedside unit to have its own unique telephone number so that friends and relatives can call patients directly, alleviating pressure on nursing staff having to field calls.
“The patient’s bedside phone number is unique to each patient’s account and can follow them around the hospital if they are moved bed, a frequent occurrence.” https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/may/01/critics-slam-rip-off-50p-a-minute-charge-to-call-patients-hospital-phones
Correction – they came back ON the radar at 9.15am on the day of the incident… driving back towards the town of Salisbury from the direction of Porton Down. That’s hugely significant, I think… as is the government’s extended and costly effort now to scrub the town clean of any molecular trace of the chemical agent.
You obviously read the Times and accept their output as the gospel truth, Charles.
The thing is, people DO believe their nonsensical statements, which is why these governments keep being elected into power. My question is, why are people so thick? I don’t recall a time when this was the case, so are people becoming stupider over time or conversley, are some people becoming more intelligent?
It can’t surely be just down to the media.
Sky News has tuned the Royalist sycophancy up to 11 today; absolutely sickening obsequious rubbish.
‘WOMAN HAS BABY’, as the Private Eye cover said years ago.
I too would prefer a one-off payment button. My income varies wildly from zero to not very much.
If you added a PayPal ‘donate’ button below the PayPal’ subscribe’ button in your sidebar, I’d give you 20 quid right now, and be glad of the opportunity, but there’s no way I can risk a subscription, not even £2/month.
What’s more, you don’t need a PayPal account to donate (you can use a creditcard instead) but I presume you do need one to subscribe.
Seconded
I guess the RAF “advisers” to the Saudi Airforce took a day off yesterday, otherwise they would surely have prevented the murder of 50 people at a wedding in Hajjah, Yemen.
It was just a horrible mistake. The RAF guys obviously take a lot of days off over there (maybe the heat is to blame) because there seem to have been a lot of horrible mistakes made by the Saudis, who obviously can’t tell a wedding party from armed insurgents. Thanks God the RAF guys are there to keep them right. Just think how many more mistakes the Saudis would make without us! LOL!
Expecting the BBC to cover this is probably just another example of “tribal epistemology”. Or it might be the blind workings of a “Russian bot”. We are, after all, involved in an “information war”, as the BBC’s Annita McVeigh TOLD former Admiral Lord West last week when he dared question the Official Version of What Happened in Douma.
Reporting the slaughter of civilians at a wedding will only give succour to bots and tribalists everywhere, so the BBC are right not to even mention it. In any case, Lord West must be suffering from some kind of temporary mental health issue. Perhaps he should be incarcerated for his own good. There’s a room next to the Skripals where he could go until he feels better.
He can even take his pet guinea pig.
It’s not just Yemen, Mike, the land of the hereditary Saudi tyrants continues to exhibit brutality that sickens:
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/04/22/559340/Beheading-Saudi-Arabia-ESOHR-execution
Mike
I agree with you about the BBC. The order must have been “Don’t mention the war” .(Or OPCW, or Skripal or Douma, or missile attack on Syria….) There’s always a royal story to fill in the rolling news hours.
There is an item about the latest atrocity in Yemen if you search on the BBC news website meanwhile let’s look at a closed door at a maternity hospital until it’s time for sports news and the weather.
I feel like there should be a way to get the message out to anyone silenced in the Skripal affair as to their rights to speak out, possibly as a whistle blower. I know these rights and protections are under attack, but those being silenced may not have access to the names of those they should contact and how to ensure their safety. Maybe some sort of social media campaign just in case that advice may reach them. Nurses involved may have been forced to sign something for example which may even scare them enough to not even seek legal advice themselves, since that would be disclosing information and put them in breach and risk the consequences. The Skripals themselves may be receiving some sort of treatment, or being told they are, and told they will die if that treatment is removed for example, or many other potential threats without knowing their rights.
I don’t know what rights and protections exist, but if there is a process then maybe someone with that knowledge could write a short piece that we could make a concerted effort, to be tweeted and retweeted for example, to try and get the word out and spread, to try and break the silence and out the truth. If there is some sort of conspiracy, then this info would only need to reach one gagged person to potentially blow the whole thing wide open, if there is no conspiracy, then all we have done is make people more aware of their rights. Win win.
A ZDF reporter called Uli Gack was on ZDF Heute (‘Today’) show last Saturday – link below. He reported that according to the locals, the militants brought canisters containing chlorine to the area and “actually waited for the Syrian Air Force to bomb the place, which was of particular interest for them.”
As the Syrian forces eventually struck the place, which was apparently a high-priority military target, the chlorine canisters exploded. The locals also told Gack that it is not the first such provocation in Douma that was staged by the militants.
According to other witness accounts, the militants deliberately exposed people to chemical agents during what they called “training exercises” then filmed it and later presented as an “evidence” of the alleged chemical attack in Douma.
The reporter then said he could not verify the people’s statements and cannot say if they are all true but called them quite “convincing” and added that they deserve attention.
https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/heute-19-uhr/videos/zitat-sgs-gack-syrien-100.html
I haven’t noticed any mention of this in UK media. Maybe I am just not looking in the right places.
“Maybe I am just not looking in the right places.”
I expect you will find it in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’.
Really no different to the situation any British tourist or visitor would find themselves in if they fell ill or were injured in a non-EEA country. It just highlights the need to have proper medical insurance. We don’t yet know if Yulia did or didn’t.
Of course they might refuse to pay out on the grounds that what happened was an act of war in which case the NHS should send the bill to the Kremlin.
No body, no evidence, though send a bill?
I am all for it. You though should not hold your breath.
For once Kempe may be right. After all she is a Russian citizen. However the downside to this approach is that the Russians may ask too many awkward questions before handing over the money.
Theresa May’s cabal has turned England into a hostile environment for everyone apart from the super wealthy, war on immigration, war on health services, war on benefits system, war on anyone reliant on public services, it’s alarming that such a system can find people willing to execute their plans, it’s called worming your way up for personal gain.
That is one way of looking at things – although any war on immigration would not appear to be proceeding too well.
The war on benefits and the health system may be going a little better – but you are still looking at a strategically insignificant skirmish. Reinforcements are massing behind the front, and in due course will make themselves felt by destroying the currency. Once the currency has been vanquished the benefits system and the health system will collapse more or less instantly. Once the safety state of the welfare state has been destroyed the stage will be set to for a more accurate measurement of the strength provided by diversity.
In the situation that is now inevitable there will be no personal gain for anyone so good luck in finding the winners in all of this. Nature does not require idiots and no amount of narcissistic pleading is going to save you from the consequences of your own actions. If you don’t like what is coming down the pipe then tough – you should have thought about all of this prior to buying into the lie that you can stop doing any meaningful work and your munificent government could solve all your problems by printing money just because you deserve it.
Yulia Skripal is a special case; is there any proof she is even alive? She might get an “accident”, of vanish to UKs own Gitmo (Cyprus?). If she is alive, her NHS fees for “toxin” washing will dwarf next to the amount wasted by MI5/6/7 on brainwashing her to become a “useful” witness. Considering the amount of time taken, she must be a hard nut to crack. Braking logic is even tougher: how does one explain 3 people surviving the worst chemical weapon?
One way to avoid an Inquest is to have a Hutton Style inquiry, another way is not to have any evidence of a death
Who would be called to an Inquest?
Dr Stephen Davies?
DS Nick Bailey?
The various other first responders?
And the Coroner might want to see the secret CCTV of the bench between 3:30 and 5:30
Nope there is not going to be an inquest, no body, no questions answered. Nothing happened.
Russia purportedly conducts a military nerve agent attack against the inhabitants of Salisbury and the victims haven’t been seen since.
So what? Stop obsessing about it!
Is it possible to make one-off donations?
Could anyone speculate why the Russian Consulate, or Victoria Skripal didn’t hire a couple of lawyers, ask them to approach a court for a writ of habeas corpus, serve it on the Government?
Because Britain and Russia are secretly working together to thwart the US / Israeli plan for the ME.
We saw it with Cameron in 2013. Publicly he was gung ho, shoulder to shoulder with the US but in reality when it came to the Commons vote (to bomb Assad for using chemical weapons) crucial numbers of Tory MP’s didn’t turn up to vote. One missed it because he was in the loo and didn’t hear the Division Bell.
Not everything is what it seems.
Interesting point. The recent unexpected rapprochement with N Korea might also be seen in that light.
Charles
April 23, 2018 at 12:29
. . . . her boyfriend is allegedly dodgy
Anyone who believes the stories about Stepan Vikeyev having links to Putin has to be playing with half a deck.
There’s a profile of him written by a proper journalist at mk.ru, which commenter Tom Smythe conveniently paraphrases for us as ‘a mother dominated, poetry-writing, pussy’. Stepan is barely employable, except at his old mum’s firm, and the idea of him masterminding a plot to bring about regime change in Russia and bring down the World Cup is just too funny.
None of these stories do what any detective or even amateur sleuth would do first: follow the money.
I don’t know whether any of you have been to places like Podolsk where our intrepid journos are digging at the moment. These are the most excrementally awful suburbs in Moscow – though even they may be a step up from darkest Abkhazia where Stepan’s family lived before.
Don’t worry, some Russian bandit will pick up the tab for Yulia’s NHS bill, because there is so obviously a pact between the Gov and the laundered loot elite that any inter gangland fallout is blamed on Putin while the Met look the other way.
As you may remember, the mysterious murder of Glushkov happened around the same time as the Skripal incident. All the headlines ran in cocert: ‘Friend of Putin Critic Found Strangled’. Putin is to blame even before the guy is completely cold. The story is quickly buried because the bandit interest is hard to ignore:
“The Russian exile found dead at his London home this week was embroiled in a High Court battle with the national airline Aeroflot.
Nikolai Glushkov, 68, was being sued by the airline, which is 51 per cent state-owned, for the return of $99 million which it alleges he embezzled along with Boris Berezovsky, the anti-Putin oligarch who died in 2013.”
Naturally, this money has long since disappeared into the tills of Knight, Frank and Tory Party Funds and Aeroflot can whistle.
Baron, I wonder whether they think it’s worth it – this Country, Courts and all, will not grant Russia anything – so is it worth the exercise?
Just when you think the news couldn’t get any more depressing they announce a royal baby…
The Labour government was behind much of the initial narrative on ‘benefit tourism’. It was absolutely shameful.
Facts had no place in this discussion.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1450389/Foreigners-who-use-NHS-will-have-to-pay-up-front.html
Sadly true. New Labour’s language softened the public up for the decisive, vicious blows that have since been delivered to the UK’s social contract. The Labour benches are still crammed with people who would prefer indefinite Tory rule to a Corbyn government.
“Benefit tourism”
Well, it’s like the whole narrative against “benefit scroungers” . . . essentially a class war. And I suspect it’s grossly exaggerated.
Actually, it’s all a nonsense isn’t? At present, anyone outside the EU who needs a visa for UK is required to carry health insurance. (Re Ms Skripal, that would also be the case. No Russians are given UK or Schengen visas without it.) But within the EU, healthcare is supposed to be reciprocal if you have an EU healthcard . . . but even there paying up front and claiming back in the home country is not unknown. EU countries have different systems. There’s a token fee for attending A&E in many EU countries, whether you are a national or a foreigner. (10 Euro in Cyprus, 50 in parts of Italy.)
So, when we leave the EU, we simply insist visitors have insurance along with their entry permit, like most of the world.
Remember that Gareth Williams et al. were murdered by Anglo-American spies when the Skripals were allowed into the UK after the Manhattan 11 swap..
Has this story been checked out. There is no alternative news source anywhere that confirms…….yes, I know, I know, shouldn’t be surprised……but where is the source…_
“ will not be charged for her treatment,”. ? ooops…_
Novichok: Behind nerve agent (Inconvenient facts surrounding Skripal saga) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQwuxGSTwj0
There is just one more fact not mentioned in that video Nicky but was mentioned elsewhere. The Russian government discovered that Novichok was patented by the United States (my number one suspect) and never produced in Russia.
http://tass.com/politics/1000583
Yeah, John I do agree with you on the Americans also Kazakhstan help with the clean up operation of Soviet Union stockpiles too ..
There a few exemptions where Yulia would not have to pay, take your pick depending on your view point.
You are also exempt if you are:
a crown servant
employed by the British Council
working or volunteering in employment overseas that is financed in part by the UK government
seeking asylum or temporary or humanitarian protection until your application (including appeals) is decided
receiving support from the Home Office under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
receiving compulsory psychiatric treatment or treatment imposed by a court order
detained in prison or by the immigration authorities in the UK
https://www.nhs.uk/NHSEngland/AboutNHSservices/uk-visitors/visiting-england/Pages/categories-of-exemption.aspx
Interesting. i think she qualifies under at least four of those headings )
O.T
The Video of infant Clinging to dead Father.. After the Yemen wedding war crime.. Just heartbreaking to see
Thank you Mrs May..Hubby .. Us..All of Us