by John Bull, England for The Saker Blog
I’m an ordinary member of the British public concerned about the consequences of the Salisbury poisoning. My contribution to the debate is modest and mainly in the public domain, but I do have some personal snippets which may be relevant. Where I have indulged in conjecture, I have made this obvious.
I am not a ‘conspiracy theorist’ nor a Kremlin stooge. I have no axe to grind, politically or personally, against any state, organisation or individual. Initially, I accepted the Government’s view that it was ‘highly likely’ the attack on the Skripals was the responsibility of the Russian Federation. This conclusion was based on the facts available to the public at the time, at a very early stage of the investigation.
Nearly four months have passed since the incident, and while we have been told almost nothing about the on-going investigation (for ‘security reasons’), much information has come to light.
And it is in the light of this new information that I now believe the probability of Russian involvement is significantly lower. There are now more ‘plausible explanations’ which need to be considered.
While this article focuses on just one of them, this does not mean I believe it the correct one, or even the most likely one; just one that needs to be looked at.
Theresa May Statement to the House of Commons, 12th March 2018
The Prime Minister said there are only two plausible explanations for the poisoning: either it was a direct act by the Russian state against the UK; or the Russian Government lost control of their potentially catastrophically damaging nerve agent and allowed it to get into the hands of others. She based this judgement on two assumptions:-
That the poison was Novichok.
That it could only have come from Russia.
We now know that the second assumption is incorrect. There are several labs in the world – including Porton Down – where the substance could have been synthesised. Indeed it is within their remit to do so in order to research antidotes, and Porton Down should certainly have done this if Russia has been secretly manufacturing the deadly stuff over the last ten years, as claimed by Boris Johnson. To identify it, as Porton Down did a few days after the incident, one must either have the formula or a sample.
Novichok
Theresa May’s first assumption was based on early sample testing, all of which must have been carried out at Porton Down. Yet there is much evidence to suggest that Novichok was not the poison used:-
- Passers-by saw the pair slouched on the bench, slipping in and out of consciousness. One of them, a female doctor, put Yulia in the recovery position. I have seen a film of a goat being killed by a nerve agent. The body convulses and goes rigid as all the muscles tighten before death occurs. If Yulia and her father had been poisoned by a nerve agent, they would not be slouched on a bench. And nobody could have put Yulia’s body in the recovery position.
- Stephen Davies, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, wrote to The Times on 16th March as follows:- “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.” He seems to be saying that no patients – including the Skripals – had experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning. Perhaps he lied to reduce alarm among The Times readers living in and around Salisbury, but I doubt it.
- The targets survived, despite the extreme lethality of the agent and there being no antidote, as explained by the CEO of Porton Down; and despite the training Russian assassins receive in its use – another claim by Boris Johnson.
Perhaps the poison failed because the dose was too small, in which case one must wonder why they fell ill at the same time, some three hours after they left the house where the alleged Novichok had been smeared on the front door handle. And if there was insufficient Novichok on the door handle to do the job, how did they have enough on their hands to distribute it around Salisbury, and how was there was enough left on the door handle to poison Nick Bailey? - According to the hospital consultant, no member of the public had symptoms or needed treatment. Yet apparently traces of Novichok were found in a number places in the city, including a pub and a restaurant which would have been busy on a Sunday afternoon. Furthermore, it must have taken the police some time to establish the movements of the Skripals after leaving the house and before arriving on the park bench.
It would be interesting to know when the public was barred from the pub and the restaurant and how many people visited those establishments following the Skripals visit and before the police cordons were established. Surely some customers and staff would have been affected if Novichok had been present. And traces of Novichok were subsequently found in both places.
(It was also be interesting to know how the police found out where the Skripals had been, as they were in no fit state to provide that information themselves. Were they with someone? Did they have a minder? Was it by any chance Detective Sergeant Bailey?) - Novichok acts within a few minutes, yet the Skripals were able to drive to the town centre, park, walk to the pub and have drinks, then walk to the restaurant and have lunch before it took any effect at all.
- When the Skripals survived – contrary to the early assessments of the medical staff treating them – we were told they would probably need to remain on life support for the rest of their lives. After they were taken off life support – thanks to the brilliant specialised treatment they received – we were told they may suffer permanent brain damage. Yulia’s video statement read out by her on 23rd May showed her to be in radiant health, apart from the tracheotomy scar.
- We are told Russia continued to develop Novichok in the last ten years as an assassin’s weapon, an attribute of which one would assume to be non-detectability. This would require the substance to break down rapidly in the target’s body after use. It therefore seems strange that the OPCW were able to confirm the presence of Novichok from blood samples taken from the victims so long after the attack (nearly three weeks), particularly as the dose was sub-lethal.
- OPCW’s unclassified report on the poisoning did not name the substance they found.
Perpetrators
If the poison wasn’t Novichok, the case against the Russian Federation would be significantly weakened. Anyone could have carried out the attack: the Russian state, the Russian Mafia, aggrieved colleagues, paid assassins or the CIA/MI6/MI5/Mossad, The probability of one or more of those intelligence services bungling what should have been a straightforward wet-job is low, not just because the attempt failed, but also because the operation was so badly planned and its aftermath amateurishly handled.
An anonymous comment:-
“The entire mess wouldn’t have been penned even by the laziest of Hollywood screen writers. It is so bad that it could only come from the minds of politicians. At least even lazy Hollywood screen writers can keep a plot together, this is just embarrassing in its stupidity. Deadly nerve agent where everyone recovers, and only three people exposed.”
Motive
Although it’s possible to dream up all sorts of motives for a hit against Mr. Skripal, one that includes killing his daughter makes little sense. Perhaps the perpetrators did not wish to kill the couple; the job wasn’t bungled after all.
Perhaps it achieved its aim which could have been simply to sour relations between the UK and Russia and rally international support against Putin. Or was there a cunning plan to induce the Government to accuse Russia of a war-like act on British soil, then discredit them six months later by showing the world the Brits had got it all wrong? Or rather the British government, which would lead to their defeat in a no-confidence vote and possibly the end of Brexit.
Means of Delivery
If the door handle wasn’t the means of delivery, the poison could have been put in their car, their drinks or more likely their restaurant meal. A possibility is that it was in their food and was put there by nature, i.e. they suffered food poisoning. I understand the onset time can vary from as little as 30 minutes up to days, depending on the type of poison of which there are many. So it could have been in their Sunday lunch at Zizzi’s, or in their meal the evening before, following the arrival from Moscow of the daughter. I am no expert on the subject, but I do have some memorable experiences of food poisoning.
The first was when I was six years old. I was on holiday in France with my parents. My mother ate a bad mussel and was very ill. I remember her propped up on a sloping sea wall, rocking her head from side to side and groaning, slipping in and out of consciousness. It was frightening. I can’t remember if she went to hospital, but she did survive with no lasting effects (except an intolerance of shell-fish). She was 33 at the time. I guess we all ate the mussels, but my mother just happened to eat a bad one.
My second experience happened a few months ago. Following a dinner party, I was struck down by a suspect scallop. I had all the usual symptoms of food poisoning, and in addition a loss of balance and shivering. I am fortunate in being healthy and able to cope with such things, so I did not seek medical advice. I remained ill for over a week until I finally took antibiotics. I was the only diner affected, which suggests to me that in a restaurant like Zizzi’s it’s possible, despite the bulk cooking, for some unlucky individuals to be poisoned and others not.
Poison in their food would account for it taking effect at the same time, despite the difference in their body weight, as women tend to eat less.
An Alternative ‘Plausible Explanation’
Perhaps Sergei and Yulia were just unlucky (about 20,000 people per year in the UK are hospitalised because of food poisoning and about 500 die). Perhaps there are no assassins to be hunted down and brought to justice: no perpetrators, no motives. All three victims have now recovered, so this particular ‘plausible explanation’ has a happy ending.
Or at least it would have done, had it not been for the possibility that someone, somewhere, succumbed to the temptation of using the incident for political purposes when they found out the victims happened to be an ex-Russian spy and his daughter.
Perhaps it was too good to miss. An opportunity to turn us, and our allies, against the enemy: the evil Putin, who continues to grow in popularity in his own country and is well on the way to making Russia a superpower again, reclaiming the Crimea without firing a single shot and thwarting the West’s attempt at regime change in Syria (see Timber Sycamore). And winning – by hook or more likely by crook – its bid to host the football World Cup.
And why not use a bit of trickery ourselves? Isn’t that how foreign policy works and always has done? The great game? In this case, such a strategy would have significant risks. The obvious one is harming the relations between the West and Russia and taking us all one step nearer to WWIII.
Next is the possibility of our government and our nation becoming the laughing stock of the world if the truth were ever revealed. In that case, our allies would realised we had cried wolf and would no longer trust us.
Finally, there would be the damage done to the reputation of our own intelligence services, police force and policy-making machinery – so soon after the dodgy dossier which took us into Iraq with such dreadful consequences.
While the investigation of this alternative ‘plausible explanation’ might not lead to a prosecution for attempted murder, other crimes may have been committed such as abduction and assault (for example, the ‘invasive and painful’ treatment inflicted on Yulia, no doubt under the instructions of the experts from Porton Down). On the political side, there could be a case of malfeasance, or grounds for impeachment for misleading Parliament.
A good starting point is the session in the House of Commons on 12th March. The PM stressed not only her two plausible options but also the need to “proceed in the right way, led not by speculation but by the evidence”. In the highly charged session, most members who spoke ignored her second explanation and also her words of caution, accusing the Russian Federation for the attack.
Who can blame those MPs? On the face of it, the crime was horrific with potentially appalling consequences, and Russia does has a dreadful record of such deeds. And to make matters worse, party politics played its part.
Jeremy Corbyn’s contribution was interesting for two reasons. Firstly, he was the only person apart from the PM urging caution – which encouraged many Tory MPs to do the opposite and abandon caution and demand direct, decisive action; predictably, the word ‘appeasement’ was mentioned. Secondly, Corbyn referred to a meeting that morning of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, stating that the chairman, Tom Tugendhat, said he would be “surprised” if the Prime Minister “did not point the finger at the Kremlin”.
Tom Tugendhat’s own contribution to the debate ignored the PM’s second plausible explanation completely, and flouted her plea for caution, He did not even speculate but did what he had thought his leader would do. He ‘pointed the finger’. He said the attack:-
“… was certainly a warlike act by the Russian Federation, and it is not the first that we have seen. Some in this House have stayed silent or decided to join the information warfare that that state is conducting against us and our allies, but we have seen it invade countries in the east, attack allies and attempt to kill Prime Ministers. Even now, it is backing the murderous Assad regime which thinks nothing of gassing its own people, yet the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition stays silent. Does my right hon. Friend agree that now is the time for us to call on our allies—the European Union, which has worked with us so well on sanctions, NATO and particularly the United States—and ask what they will do to assist us in this moment when we are in need?”
There was no question of him waiting for the Russian response to the PM’s two plausible explanations. He had already rejected the second one, and he was certain about the first.
Following Russia’s negative response the following evening, the PM updated the House on 14th March with a further statement in which she declared:-
“There is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian state was culpable for the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter, and for threatening the lives of other British citizens in Salisbury, including Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey. This represents an unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom.”
While she chose her words carefully, she had clearly dropped her second plausible explanation. There was no logical reason for her to do that. She’d changed her mind. Why?
During the weeks following, Boris Johnson said on German TV that the CEO of Porton Down had assured him the Novichok was from Russia. Then we found out the CEO had said nothing of the sort. The denial from Porton Down was quickly followed by the deleting of the FCO tweet which read:-
“Analysis by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology laboratory at Porton Down made clear that this was a military grade nerve agent produced in Russia.”
Der Spiegel came up with an interesting observation:-
“The Foreign Office had ignored a fundamental rule of the digital battlefield: Only amateurs delete problematic tweets,”
The German TV interviewer also asked Boris several times if Porton Down held any Novichok samples. He ducked the question, over and over again. I wanted to know the answer too, so I wrote to my MP, who happens to be Tom Tugendhat. I asked him if he could find out for me. He replied with what appeared to be a standard letter, ignoring my question and saying, amongst other things:-
“This was an attack on British soil by Russia, as confirmed by the OPCW.”
The OPCW had not confirmed this. When I pointed this out to him, he replied:-
“You are of course quite right but I think it fair for me to draw the implication I did…”
Thus both Boris Johnson and Tom Tugendhat had lied. Perhaps they both felt the need to beef up the Government narrative. If so, was it because they both knew it was fabricated? If this were the case, did either of them, or both, play a part in its fabrication?
Being chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Tom Tugendhat is in a very powerful position. His committee holds the Foreign Office to account, so in some ways Boris Johnson answers to him and his committee. On the other hand, Boris outranks him. Could the two of them together have exploited the poisoning incident to bring to bear some much needed pressure on Putin?
The pair of them had the means, in that the Director of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service answers directly to the Foreign Secretary. ‘C’ would have done what he was told, perhaps using the facilities and expertise of his I-Ops and ‘Jolly Fun Tricks’ departments. Despite the rush, that organisation has the ability to handle the theatre, press releases, sleight of hand and all the other shenanigans required to pull off such a scam – and the willingness to do so if they were persuaded, perhaps by their ultimate boss the Foreign Secretary, that it were in the best interests of the Nation.
No doubt elements within Porton Down could have likewise been persuaded to co-operate, perhaps by their overall boss, our new Secretary of State for Defence. In a speech he gave on 12th March 2018, eight days after the poisoning, he said:-
“And today I can announce we are building on our world class expertise at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in Porton Down. We are investing £48 million in a new Chemical Weapons Defence Centre to maintain our cutting edge in chemical analysis and defence.”
I guess that no hand-held detector has yet been developed and produced which detects Novichok in the field, so I assume the thousands of swabs taken around Salisbury, and the blood samples from the victims, would have gone the labs at Porton for testing. It would not have been difficult, once they were there, to lace them with Novichok before testing, or fiddle the results, or provide the testers with a comparator which wasn’t Novichok, or simply file a false report. No Novichok would have left the buildings and no-one would have been hurt.
When the CEO of Porton Down was interviewed for Sky TV, following Boris’s gaff on German TV, he was asked if the Novichok allegedly used in the attack could have come from his establishment. He could have simply said ‘we don’t have any’, but instead he explained in some detail and with conviction that there was no way a substance like that could have left the buildings. Perhaps it didn’t need to.
The culture at Porton Down is of interest. They unlawfully killed a serviceman with nerve agent in 1953, and during the early 70s they did call for service volunteers to help find ‘a cure for the common cold’, when they really wanted them for NBC research. This is no myth. I saw the appeals myself. They probably thought it acceptable to take risks and be deceitful, if it were in the interests of the Nation. It was strange that the CEO emphasised at the end of his Sky interview that the Novichok was ‘military grade’. Surely that’s true of any Novichok. I can’t imagine there is a civilian grade.
Having worked at a similar UK research establishment, I have some knowledge of security procedures. The Official Secrets Act and the ‘need to know’ culture does a good job in keeping our secrets secret, and not only from our enemies. Operation Grapple in the 1950s provides a fine example of how a government establishment was allegedly able keep from the Nation and our allies – and from most of their staff – the dark secret of Britain’s non-H-bomb (Hansard 4 Dec 2002 : Column 252WH).
Was Boris Johnson impetuous enough to initiate such a hoax? Was this some Machiavellian plan made in haste by inexperienced politicians with little thought about how it might develop? Probably not. But to both him and Tugendhat, such a plan would have had great attraction. Not only would it give their leader a big stick to hit Putin with, but it would also distract from the debacle of Brexit, enhance the standing of the PM and the Conservative party, secure the support of our allies, and provide an opportunity to skewer Corbyn, allegedly one of Putin’s useful idiots. And nobody would be killed, so the Intelligence Services Act of 1994 would not be breached. But would those involved have risked their political careers with such a harebrained scheme?
Or did they brainwash themselves – or each other – into believing the Putin was definitely the culprit, and they felt the Government needed to take swift and decisive action against the Nation’s arch-enemy, rather than wait for confirmatory evidence which would – they wrongly assumed – soon come to light? In other words, did they start out having any plan at all? Had they any idea of what they were getting into? Were they driven by arrogance, patriotism, ambition or plain stupidity?
It’s worth noting their outspoken loathing of Russian media – RT and Sputnik in particular. They accuse them of pumping out nothing but propaganda and conspiracy theories to manipulate the minds of the Great British public; they cry out for their broadcasting licences to be revoked; and they urge their parliamentary colleagues not to take part in any of those Russian programmes as it would give credibility to their lies.
These TV stations have been offering alternative theories about the poisoning, but if Britain had been accused – in the absence of any credible evidence – of attacking a British double agent and his daughter in Moscow, would not the BBC be doing the same? The situation is made far worse, because we, the British public, are being told absolutely nothing. The media are eerily quiet. RT and others are filling the vacuum.
Perhaps Tugendhat thought the OPCW would confirm the attack was by Russia. Perhaps Johnson assumed the CEO of Porton Down would back up his claim that the Novichok used came from that state. When the evidence to support their accusations did not materialise, did Johnson seek help from within that secret organisation of which he is the ultimate boss, MI6?
It is strange that Tugendhat should be such a champion of English Common Law (see his address to the RUSI, 29th May 2018), yet in this case he abandoned the concept of a presumption of innocence, leaping to a verdict of guilty and demanding a heavy sentence before the crime had been properly investigated.
Conclusion
If indeed there are no Russian assassins to hunt down, a quiet word with Tugendhat and Johnson might be appropriate, if only to eliminate this particular ‘plausible explanation’. But if it was food poisoning, or another explanation which lets Russia off the hook, someone will have to decide on how we get out of the mess. The options would be:-
- Come clean and confess we got it wrong.
. - Stick to the story, make sure the police investigation takes ages and hope the whole thing gets forgotten about.
- Find a couple of patsies and stage a shoot-out in a Swindon suburb as a result of a tip-off (can’t reveal sources). Russian passports found at the scene along with two pairs of Marigolds and a handbook on how to smear Novichok on doorknobs. Usual stuff.
The trouble with 2 and 3 is that they would rely on the continued silence of the many parties involved. My fear is that what might have started out as a fairly straightforward but hastily planned psy-ops operation ends up with the premature demise of some innocent people. Cover-ups are usually more drastic than the actions they try to hide.
The economist John Maynard Keynes was once challenged for altering his position on some economic issue. His alleged reply was:-
“When my information changes, I change my mind. What do you do?”
Having made the accusations and found Putin to be guilty and passed sentence, Tugendhat, Johnson and certain other MPs don’t have the luxury of changing their minds without consequence. Unless the early conclusion they jumped to is the correct one, they and the government are in a very, very difficult position.
The world is watching…
The Skripal incident was a foolish false flag which went horribly wrong. It occurred right before the presidential elections in Russia and the World Cup. Why on earth would the Russian Government do something so foolish right before these two events ? To discredit itself and gain negative publicity ? Of course not. Also, why would they use military nerve gas of all things ? To commit mass murder ? Had it really been used, the streets would have been covered with dead bodies. Nobody died. There were three “victims”, father and daughter and a British policeman. All three made remarkable recoveries after a nerve gas “attack”. Obviously nothing of the sort happened.
Britain and the US expelled a large number of Russian diplomats. EU countries responded with symbolic expulsions, obviously not believing the given explanations. Germany is still waiting for an official report.
There is another side to this story. The Internet has seen articles, which quoted Chinese military sources. Apparently NATO did not do so well in the region south of Damascus. It was aiding the “rebels” who were fighting President Sadat. The Russian Air Force responded with 30 sorties a day. Result ? Some 300 French troops were captured, 200 British and an undisclosed number of Americans. This does not include those who were killed. Macron asked Trump for US troops to stay in Syria. Theresa May accuses Russia of a military nerve gas attack. Had this something to do with those NATO troops being captured ?
“Theresa May accuses Russia of a military nerve gas attack. Had this something to do with those NATO troops being captured ?”
I don’t understand how you are proposing to connect these dots.
Katherine
I have understood from multiple sources that there is a direct link between the Skripal incident and the failure of US/UK/French troops to prevail in Damascus (to kill Assad). From the first moment i heard about the Skripal incident, i thought “False Flag” + “typical Boris Johnson” as a TV programme had aired shortly before with a similar plot-line and must have inspired him to create the event…
It not only provided the UK with a means of hitting the Russians (if you cant kill on the battlefield you can at least create some embarrassment) but there were plenty of reasons why Theresa May found the idea of having a distraction to be perfect…the incompetent progress of Brexit is one…The Grenfell Tower fire is another….the Salford child abuse scandal…the need to show the puppetmaster (the US) that the UK was doing its bit to improve its antagonistic posture towards Russia…the need to justify more arms expenditure…Theresa May usually looks like a haranguing eagle and suddenly she gained a beatific smile…all was now well as Boris had done such a fine job …
Ask the reverse question: if you were in the Russian government, was the Skripal poisoning plausible? the Russian military doctors made the correct assessment that it was not Novichock but more likely to be an opioid or food poisoning…the Russian Foreign ministry had their facts right even if there were vigorous protests initially from the Czech republic and a look of horror from the UK ambassador to the UN…
Theresa May stated that the Russian government had the motive…I could not see why Russia needed to do this…But i certainly felt the British government had the motive…
Thanks for your explanation of what you meant.
Re “Ask the reverse question: if you were in the Russian government, was the Skripal poisoning plausible? ”
Of course the Skripal poisoning is not “plausible” on any level, in terms of Russian state involvement, or any other level. No one knows what really happened to the Skripals, so none of the stories provided so far is “plausible.” The most “plausible” theory for a motivation for some kind of attack on Skripal that I have heard is the one that connects dots between Skripal and the Steele dossier. Per this theory, perhaps the daughter was collateral damage. It also sounds very possible that they both, plus their minder, had food poisoning, and the minder panicked, or decided to “use” the illness to create a spontaneous false flag.
So, the point of my query was not that I find the Skripal poisoning “plausible” but to ask you to clarify your point.
Any chance of a link to these captured NATO troops?
A number of the ISIS snuff movies were based on spy thriller television programs shown earlier on Turkish TV. The plot line for the Skripal attack also mirrored an earlier TV program. In conventional police work, the same modus operandi would suggest the same or similar perpetrators.
The Skripal incident was definitely made theatrical to allow for the immediate assignment of blame. A real secret intelligence hit would take the form of the attack on Gareth Williams, a GCHQ mathematician seconded to MI6. He was living in a MI6 safe house in London, didn’t turn up for work for a week and was founded folded up in a large sports bag placed in the bath. The central heating in the flat had been turned up to maximum to accelerate decomposition in order to fool forensic time of death analysis. The perpetrators remain unknown. It was ascribed accidental death/suicide(?) because allegations of sexual deviancy. It does seem surprising that MI6 expressed no concern when a member of staff went missing for a week.
Many of us in America commiserate with Mr. Bull. Both our countries have corrupt and incompetent leadership and a national media that facilitates the lies and deceit broadcast daily.
Sergei and Yulia Skipal are being held incommunicado and outside the justice system. They have either been whisked away to an undisclosed location or murdered. I’m afraid we will never know the truth.
Thank you for your commiserations. May I return the kind thought? Let’s hope both our countries can get through this rocky patch.
Absence of any reasonable motives on the part of the Russian government, is the most glaring hole in this affair. Russia had a lot to lose and absolutely nothing to gain. Eliminating somebody who had no value to FSB at the time of “elimination” is just ludicrous. Moreover, the way the “attempted murder” was perpetrated is even more unbelievable. It doesn’t matter what is plausible in this fiasco. What matters, is that the explanations that were offered by the UK government were utter idiotic. This spy could’ve been evaporated, heart attacked, or just walked off some roof while cleaning his chimney among thousands of other ways of meeting his maker without any evidence, or proof pointing at the Russian government. Anything is more plausible than the “Novichok” nonsense.
I think whatever happened in Salisbury, a Russian Nerve agent murder story would have emerged. There are just too many people desperate to sing that song. Indeed nothing could have happened, or it could well have been a provocation or a straight murder by someone.
Although mentioned in the print version of the Daily Telegraph a few days after the incident, I gather the link with the US Spygate investigation is not common knowledge because of the 2 D-notices that block the press even discussing the issue. The Steele dossier was produced by Orbis Business Intelligence, which employs Christopher Steele and Pablo Miller (who had been Skripal’s handler and lives surprise surprise near Salisbury). Miller and Skripal are likely contributors to the Steele pile of steaming shxx.
“No doubt elements within Porton Down could have likewise been persuaded to co-operate, perhaps by their overall boss, our new Secretary of State for Defence. In a speech he gave on 12th March 2018, eight days after the poisoning, he said:-
“And today I can announce we are building on our world class expertise at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory in Porton Down. We are investing £48 million in a new Chemical Weapons Defence Centre to maintain our cutting edge in chemical analysis and defence.”………..
………..When the CEO of Porton Down was interviewed for Sky TV, following Boris’s gaff on German TV, he was asked if the Novichok allegedly used in the attack could have come from his establishment.”
I didn’t know about the investment. But it is WRONG to say the CEO for Porton Down was interviewed by SKY, although they did claim that who it was.
Gary Aitkenhead is in fact CEO of dstl, the parent group of PD.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyaitkenhead/
It runs a bunch of MOD research establishments of which PD is just one. The man himself has telecoms experience at Motorola, mostly on the commercial side (a telecoms salesman as some call him).
dstl is based in the pleasant town of Sevenoaks, about 100 miles away from Salisbury and PD.
To the best of my knowledge no one from PD has talked to the press or even made a formal announcement, and as Craig Murray made clear long ago, the “a nerve agent of a kind produced in Russia” was a word formula long argued over with the foreign office. PD have not gone further it seems themselves.
Thank you for your excellent comments. May I just explain that ‘Porton Down’ is the place name where a Government experimental station was set up in 1916 to test chemical weapons. The establishment is near the village of Porton, and has changed its name a few times over the years. It is currently home to the MoD’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) and Gary Aitkinhead is the CEO and is based there. The establishment near the pleasant town of Sevenoaks closed some years ago and is now a housing estate.
Thank you John Bull for your thoughts.
I would add an additional recent development to your analysis in regard to Johnson and Tugendhat – that is the recent OPCW illegal vote by “members” allowing the OPCW to attribute blame. The draft was tabled by the UK.
According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova and the Ambassador to the OPCW there was a lot of skullduggery :
https://sputniknews.com/world/201806281065860773-opcw-members-bribing/
…”As a result of political manipulation, as well as, as has became known, the direct bribery of a number of delegations and outright blackmail, the UK and other states that are in favor of strengthening the chemical convention have managed to squeeze out its odious draft decision, which has conferred on the OPCW Technical Secretariat the powers to identify those responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria,..”
Looks like the UK and their NATO allies are just going to carry on by manipulating the OPCW as they can’t change the story now and have their white helmets waiting to perform another false flag in Syria- unfortunately for them – the OPCW doesn’t have the mandate from the CWC and a lot of countries could end up just walking away…
And thank you for your comments. I found them interesting and enlightening.
Well-written piece — thank you, JB.
The concluding paragraph merits some special attention:
”Having made the accusations and found Putin to be guilty and passed sentence, Tugendhat, Johnson and certain other MPs don’t have the luxury of changing their minds without consequence. Unless the early conclusion they jumped to is the correct one, they and the government are in a very, very difficult position.”
Well, yes and no. Basically, people like Johnson, May, and Tugendhat are just soulless crooks and apparatchiks with a very limited ”mind” to change. They didn’t really jump into any conclusions; they knew the Party Line and stuck to it. However, even soulless crooks and apparatchiks have to prove some genuine competence and intelligence to gain status, recognition, and respectability in whatever society they operate. Concocting ”Novichok” fiction garbage becomes a problematic strategy once the motives are plain for all the world to see — indeed the more so when the narrative gets littered and cluttered with unnecessary, easily refutable sensationalism like ”nerve gas attack”.
All in all, the Skripal/Novichok screamfest came a cropper: The FIFA World Cup in Russia is going full steam ahead. Takes some more planning to achieve goals (pun intended) at that level of ambition. And, no, Boris Johnson’s hairstyle doesn’t increase the credibility of the UK Government, LOL.
Thank you for your kind opening remark. And thanks for your valuable insight.
“Or rather the British government, which would lead to their defeat in a no-confidence vote and possibly the end of Brexit.”
Nice one. I did consider that the whole stupid story was ultimately to blackwash Theresa May’s government, i.e. a false flag that is designed to become outed as a poorly executed false flag. It is either that or the aZE is getting quite sloppy and desperate.
tom tugendhat is a nephew of the jew baron tugenhat, and met parubiy in the British Parliement last month. parubiy then went to the US, where he was confronted by Max Blumenthal (a good Jew; son of sidney blumenthal, former aide to bill & apparently a long-time confident of hitlery).
Insofar as thinking it was a stick to hit Putin with, here’s hoping it wasn’t that, but rather a boomerang.
Thanks for the Tugendhat connection.
Just watched this video and commentary of Blumenthal confronting Parubiy in the USA, provided at ICH:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49767.htm
Katherine
Thanks Katherine, I forgot to post the video link.
I have only one thing to say concerning this sordid comical affair I consider most important for some sense of Justice to prevail:
Free Yulia!!
I think blogmire has a seriously plausible interpretation
I fully agree! The blogmire/Rob Slane is the very best when it comes to exposing the evil stupidity of this case from multiple angles. (But of course I appreciate John Bull’s effort!)
The Skripal case(now a cold case)was since the start linked with Syria…the word CHEM was supposed to be linked to horrible V Putin,before the CHEM false flag 2 in Goutha.Why because,at least dozens or even more than one hundred UK Special forces were being held prisoners in Syria(some french as well but less).They wanted to baigain(negociate)their liberation(they later have been released via Lebanon).Just after came the fake missiles attack(‘real’ missiles but on fake targets with zero dead).A few days after ghouta has been totally liberated by Syrian and allies forces(with russian support).Of course T May was not going to recognize that UK forces were present in Syria with…Al Qaeda and co..for years(same for France and the US).A link to sabotage the brexit was also a possibility,perfect to hit two targets with one ‘bullet’don’t you think?
Another possibility was stupidly to try to ‘sabotage’ the russian presidential elections(which is crazy as it ended up to have the opposite effect,to strenghten Putin).But a naive person like May(and or BJ) may believe such idiocies even more if coming from the MI6.Same for the World Cup,the goal was to think that less uk fans would travel in Russia.On this matter this a victory for May as the amount of UK fans is very small compared to much farer countries like Brazil,Mexico,Argentina,Columbia even Costa Rica or Egypt etc…but there is now a boomerang effect against May as the Uk team(for once) has some success,fans are accusing May and the UK MSM that the low number of uk fans is due to…the 24/7 russophobia home.A lot have been scared to visit Russia to follow their team.Of course it is a total failure as the World Cup seems to be the best ever organized(even the russian team is doing well,must be a nightmare for the neocons).Stadiums are fully packed,it is a real party.A perfect organization,zero incident(where are the ‘hooligans?).Even worse for the UK and the West people from Europe including UK have only fantastic comments about Russia(people are friendly,cities are clean,no migrants,it is safer than in their own country etc).Now if you read the comments below the football reports coming from Russia in the western MSM,fans are realizing that they have been lied about Russia by their politicians and media for years.Even on MSM tv there are positive comments,they tried a bit when the Cup started to find something wrong,but they did not find anything.
Still two weeks to go ok,but let’s hope there is no ‘last minute event’…as the Putin/Trump summit is scheduled just one day after the final(07/15 final,summit 07/16).Nato,the US deep state and the EU are in full panic mode,l their anti russian narrative is falling apart.Only for that reason the W Cup is a tremendous PR success maybe a triumph for Putin?
The Brits have just announced they have identified two suspects who left the UK for Moscow a few days after the incident. Unfortunately they can’t be extradited for trial. How very convenient. I bet the identification is based on secret evidence assessed in secret. It is the Queen of Hearts Alice in Wonderland strategy – conclusion first, evidence later.
https://z5h64q92x9.net/proxy_u/ru-en.en/rusvesna.su/news/1530593365
may’s pathetic false accusation is a peculiar trait of how nasty, spiteful the British can be, while at the same time being petty, stupid and wrong. It also shows what low class trash she is.
Totally agree. May is really an awful hag.
Hate to be sexist about it.
So I’ll add that Johnson is a gross buffoon. This Mutt and Jeff pair are Britain’s best?
How excrutiating for the Brits who are used to lording over the rest of us.
BTW, I keep re-noticing how much of the British royal family is German.
Of course Albert, the Prince Consort of Victoria, was German.
But so was Victoria!
She was in the line of Georges of the house of Hanover.
Wiki:
George III ” was concurrently Duke and prince-elector of Brunswick-Lüneburg (“Hanover”) in the Holy Roman Empire before becoming King of Hanover on 12 October 1814. He was the third British monarch of the House of Hanover, but unlike his two predecessors, he was born in England, spoke English as his first language,[1] and never visited Hanover”
His mother was German.
His wife was German.
He was Queen Victoria’s grandfather.
Victoria’s mother, too, was a German princess.
So, sure looks like Victoria’s maternal and paternal grandparents plus her father (son of George) and mother were all German. Hence, she was German, she married a German, so all of their chidlren were German. Six or seven of them married Germans.
Kind of off-topic, but kind of interesting . . .
Katherine
To be fair, we’ve had rubbish pms going back decades, of both sexes, but the worst by far, because of the number of deaths, suffering & destruction he is responsible for, has to be phony bliar, and considering what mayhem is responsible for just on Yemen alone, looks like she is trying to catch up.
Insofar as royalty is concerned, there is so much hidden and deep there…
Re Blair,
Yes, he was awful. He is a war criminal.
As an American I can say that I recall quite clearly that it was Blair who made the Iraq invasion palatable to Americans—or, many Americans who thought the whole idea was totally harebrained and based o nlies, before Blair got on board.
And, I well recall how happy so many were when Blair came in, was it in . . . 1994 or thereabouts? and Labour was finally back in charge after the awful Thatcher and I guess Major was relatively anodyne. Yay!
And he turned out to be a male Hillary Clinton before the fact
Still, I gotta say, that for the haglike and buffoonish visuals the current Mutt and Jeff get the Blue Ribbon for shear revulsion.
Katherine
The explanation for the Iraqi invasion follows from 911: you can extrapolate backwards to prove 911 was a false flag (that is, one of the ways). Take into account PNAC & a new ‘Pearl Harbor’ which is what PNAC (bush, cheney, dumbsfeld etc) were pushing for when clinton was pres, & add in the original wolfowitz doctrine from 1992, as mentioned in the nyt from then, which revealed that Russia – & any other rising power – was to be contained, so that it could not challenge the USA. ukraine is therefore used against Russia, as a ‘thorn in the flesh’, and obviously, the USG cares nothing for the ukrainians.
Less than 1/5 through PNAC, it’s all unravelling, and the USG has wasted $trillions, or rather, the MIC got the financial benefit while the US public got the cost.
By its pride, greed and stupidity – and outplayed by Putin – the USA, even if both North & South America are included, is outmatched by the 5:1 population of Eurasia, and its growing collective GDP/PPP.
I have already called for Theresa May to consider her position. What is the point of waiting? Yulia and Sergei will never see the light of day and we the dopes of this world can do nothing about it. Britain has a long history of public officials lying – to whit Dresden. Bomber Command and its flight officers, those who alive today, are still reviled because they refused LMF when they knew they were being lied to. For how many years do we have to wait to clear the air? Another 75?
“… the case against the Russian Federation would be significantly weakened.”
There is NO case against the RF whatsoever!
Full stop.
Substitute lies for case, then, or call it the lying case.
It is truly terrifying that the Skripals have simply been “disappeared.”
Welcome to Buenos Aires on Thames.
Don’t cry for me, Westminster . . .
Katherine
I think we must be careful not to rule anything out unless we have rock-solid evidence. If you are 99% sure RF didn’t do it, you’re 1% sure they did. The Government thought it ‘highly likely’ RF were responsible and made the illogical leap that RF were the culprits. We mustn’t make the same mistake.
There is something missing in this fascinating re-cap of events and that is the World Cup. The Skripals were suffered from a poisoning incident on March 4th. Within 48 hours the UK’s impetuous and unpredictable Foreign Secretary, Old Etonian Boris Johnson, was blaming Russia, even going so far as to announce that England could pull out of Russia World Cup. All this despite the fact there was no evidence on who had poisoned the Skripals, and that international football fixtures do not fall within his remit. But they do fall within the Football Assocaition (FA), English football’s governing body. Coincidentally, in common with many leading political figures in the UK, the president of the FA just happens to be another Old Etonian, Prince William, heir to the British throne. Quick on Johnson’s heels, the very next day, March 7th, the Daily Telegraph reported that Prince William, would not be attending World Cup matches in Russia.
I cannot help thinking that the events are not linked in some way, even if Johnson and the royals just chose to exploit the situation after the event, thinking the British public and England fans would rise up behind them. Whatever the answer, as events have shown, the Prince’s announcement did nothing to dissuade tens of thousands of England fans from travelling to Russia to show support for their, and the prince’s, team.
However, as the prospect of England getting through to the quarter finals draws closer, we will know the result within in less than a couple hours, the prospect of the president of FA not attending a World Cup final featuring the team he represents, begins to hover – however precariously – on the horizon. Might one be so bold as to suggest that William and Boris will be praying for England lose against Colombia tonight?
As England now is qualified for the 1/4 of final,what are UK politicians and royals do if they don’t want to be ridiculed and humiliated?Imagine England going as far as the final(very possible as they will challenge a weak Sweden and then probably Croatia or Russia in the 1/2 final)?
It would be too funny to see either the Royals or May herself(even more BJ)in the stadium with their ‘friend’ Putin(lol).
I don’t want to miss that.And the day after the Trump/Putin Summit not very far in Finland.What a nightmare for May.
She will only have one solution to avoid this scenario:another false flag against RF or in the UK or in Russia,Ukraine,Syria or any NATO country(big nato meeting in Brussels 07/11-13).Or becoming a ‘fan’ of Sweden or Croatia….or Russia…excellent no?
Any MH flight in the area?
And the false flag was hauled out in Amesbury last Saturday. To be reported as soon as news came in that England had qualified for the quarter finals.
“Find a couple of patsies and stage a shoot-out in a Swindon suburb as a result of a tip-off (can’t reveal sources). Russian passports found at the scene along with two pairs of Marigolds and a handbook on how to smear Novichok on doorknobs. Usual stuff.”
Ha-ha-ha. Highly likely!
Message to the English: come to Russia and feel the love
Tom Rosenthal
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/03/world-cup-russia-england-fans
It is called ”the boomerang effect”:
‘Football the winner, scoundrels the losers’: England fans berate Boris Johnson after World Cup win
https://www.rt.com/sport/431660-boris-johnson-england-world-cup/
New false flag?
Two hospitalized near Salisbury, exposure to unknown substance suspected
More:
http://tass.com/world/1011878
I see nothing new in this rehash of the ‘skripal incident’.
I am curious, though. I did not know that there is any nerve agent beyond a ‘military grade’ nerve agent. Is there a civilian grade nerve agent? If so, what is it, what are it’s differences from ‘military grade’ nerve agents? Who has this ‘civilian grade’ nerve agent and why? ‘Nerve agent’? Let’s call all those substances what they really are, 100% fatal chemical weapons for which there is no antidote. Period.
The ‘skripal incident’ is total and patently obvious bovine scatology. ANY nerve agent chemical used would have killed half if not more of the populace of that town and contaminated the entire area with a nerve agent that has an unknown, to we ordinary mortals, half life. I say again, it’s all bovine scatology, patently obvious to any living life form with a cognizant level above that of the brain damaged amoeba crawling through protozoan mush.
Auslander
Author
Never The Last One https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGCY8KK A Deep Look In To Russia, Her Culture And Her Armed Forces
An Incident On Simonka https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ERKH3IU NATO Is Invited To Leave Sevastopol, One Way Or The Other.
@ Auslander
I am curious, though. I did not know that there is any nerve agent beyond a ‘military grade’ nerve agent. Is there a civilian grade nerve agent? If so, what is it, what are it’s differences from ‘military grade’ nerve agents? Who has this ‘civilian grade’ nerve agent and why? ‘Nerve agent’? Let’s call all those substances what they really are, 100% fatal chemical weapons for which there is no antidote. Period.
I entirely concur with your statement. As a young doctor (back at the beginning of the ’80-es), I did my obligatory army service, first part of it, in the Medical Corps reserve officers’ school in what was still Yugoslavia at the time. We had quite a number of classes dedicated to RBH warfare (Radiological, Biological and Chemical warfare). There are NO ‘civilian’ and ‘military grade’ nerve agents. All of these are lethal unless antidote is administered. There is no SPECIAL antidote for nerve gas, however, it is a syringe of atropin which is administered via compressed spring within a syringe through clothing, usually at the front part of the thigh, and hope for the best (those more interested in atropjn effect can easily find more on this subject), however, I wish to emphasize once again that it is NOT a special antidote.
Why the compressed spring? So as to avoid any reluctance on the part of soldier who may be self-administering the syringe and give himself a shallow shot, thus decreasing the effect of the medication
By the time you started your service, I had been serving for fifteen years. I went through the training for Chem/Bio and it was roughly the same as yours including the syringe although we did not know what was in the device at that time. I was told by my section Sarjant that even if the injection worked, and it was not instant cure, go out kill all the bad guys I and we could as soon as we could because we would be dead soon anyhow. Fortunately we never had to use the injection to see if it worked.
My little diatribe about ‘civilian’ vs. ‘military’ grade chemical weapons was dripping with sarcasm.
Auslander
With regard to the article being a rehash, I did say at the beginning that my contribution was mainly in the public domain. I’m sorry you missed the new bits. The most significant one for me was the email from my Member of Parliament lying about what the OPCW had confirmed. Why would an MP tell such a blatant lie to one of his constituencies? The desire, or rather need, to answer that question is what encouraged me to look deeper into the whole thing.
Politicians are like prostitutes, so much so that a famous President once said the two vocations have quite remarkable similarities to each other. Generally, if a practicing member of either vocation is talking, they are lying. The difference between the vocations is with a prostitute, you pay her and she’s out of your life in an hour. Politicians, on the other hand, are like a plague that lasts forever, hence the occasional revolution with lamp posts looking like apple trees at harvest time, heavy and full. The frightening thing is the politicians will lie as they are standing in line for the rope or the headsman.
I meant no disrespect to you in my scribblings. I generally know a lot more than I write about or post on this forum or in my books, and sometimes the breadth of my knowledge is forgotten as I write. My apologies if I have offended you.
Auslander
Not at all, so no need to apologise. When I read your comment, I wondered if I should have started with the Tugendhat connection. I would love to read your books.
„Politicians are like prostitutes … Generally, if a practicing member of either vocation is talking, they are lying.“
I am not sure that you were correctly informed about prostitutes whose company the founder of our religion preferred by far to that of the politicians of that time and region. On the contrary, they have a reputation to tell clients who do not behave comme il faut who and what they are in no uncertain terms and with raised voice – something never to be expected from a politician who would smile at you and then have you backstabbed. By an aide, of course. And they are able to be so honest that Dostoevskij took notice, and Heinrich Mann married one. The founding fathers of America, too, it seems, because these were the women sent from Europe to America – „to make Europe clean again“, or something.
However, your equalling of the acting of politicians with the business of prostitution reminded me of a text from 2007 about a theatre author, director, theoretician and teacher who died in 1982. He had preached that „The whole world is theatre“, that is, in any case interesting stuff for people like him who love theatre. However, in that text about him many years after him, some more sinister aspects of a world of theatre had been detected and commented. And there it says:
„All our public life is organized like a brothel, that is, like a special kind of theatre. The whole of continental Europe is is a brothel entertained by a madam which does not reside on the continent. Thus, brothels are interesting places for all of us, to learn and understand much from. You go there to make a lady your own … (and) when the time you paid is over you have no more rights over her. But you never really had any, you had just paid a ticket for being allowed to look or to take part in a performance. You never owned the lady a bit, nor her time. She belongs to the owner of the institution, the impresario, and does what he wants. Or else… Public life could be better if at any moment we remembered that the whores that work „for us“ on our money in reality take our money, yes, but never work for us and on our orders but only before us, and for the spectacle, for producing certain sensorious and psychic effects, but never for our interests and never on our orders. (…) Perhaps this is even the general model of our existence on earth, with a Great Being as the impresario who uses individuals to play theatre to other individuals? (…) In theatre, brothels and politics exists this very distinctive feature of a hidden double rule…“ This text also has passages about „the theatre of contempt“ that certain politicians like namely „Merkel“ use all the time to push through agendas which were never argued rationally, but which everybody is expected to join to avoid being made a target of this contempt show himself – and the Skripal 1+2 plays are just something made up like that.
The reason why I think this text about (everything)-as-theatre is pertinent here, is that I witnessed how a normal, mediocre amateur theatre in our boring town was turned into a training ground for plain clothes police types who visibly were there for learning „that certain something“ which the police academy cannot give you: e.g. „how to look credibly like somebody else“. For instance, not like a police snitch but like a „true friend“ of a target that must be debriefed and then deturned. This mediocre theatre, allegedly of anthroposophic alignment, claimed to have advanced knowledge of namely this art by studying and following the teachings of Michael Chekhov, whose methods are allegedly the best in making everybody believe that you are what you are not. An english theatre director from an english „arts school“ in Dartington got interested and organized the exchange of students and experience…. Later this english „theatre director“ made tours through the newly liberated countries of Eastern Europe and founded local copies of this model – or created a whole agents network since Dartington, I eventually discovered, is a trap and an instrument of english spy services. Thus, it seems to me that it is not by chance that politics namely in England have turned from real events into completely staged shows: it was planned to be developed that way and the best means have been studied and adopted on purpose.
Brecht, founder of an anti-illusional theatre, proposed to destroy its effects by demonstrating again and again how they were produced, tinkered, concocted. Such a special attention to the trade tools of professional crooks seems necessary here, too. „Politicians are liars“ is not enough (in this class of events) – the problem is not personality deficiencies but a whole illusion industry with illusion tools and helping professionals – all of which can be found when searched for.
bp
Still too complicated. The simplest and most factual explanation is that there was no “substance” at all. MI6 ordered the Skripals to appear in public and act drunk or unconscious. The rest was prestaged fake action.
She [= Amber Rudd] said the responders to the incident had told her that something about the scene, which police initially believed to be drugs related, “didn’t feel quite right”.
http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/salisbury/salisburynews/16076564.Home_Secretary_praises___39_resilient__39__city_response_to_major_incident/?ref=rss
But there was a new one
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/04/wiltshire-unknown-substance-leaves-pair-critically-ill-in-salisbury-hospital
And one in March
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/05/salisbury-hospital-police-fire-crews-attend-major-incident
With the Skripals in between – were they just a hoax to provide a useful story for something got out of control from Porton Downs? Hence the aggressive desperation to cover British arses?
Skripal Case had one propaganda vector, “Putin is a Mad Man”. T. May from the word GO, before any serious investigation, had all the answers. We can make all the excuses we want for her but a rational explanation for me is that this was used to try and sell the public on the message that Putin is Mad.
Same was true in NY in 2001, down to the passport found in the wreckage. Public manipulation to do war on a global scale for which the Public is made to pay.
Seymour Hersch apparently suggesting Russian criminals involved…..which might explain why Theresa May had this question that had Russian state lost control of their stocks…..personally I feel she is being set up as a patsy y BJ…but that then raises the question if so the criminals would have working in cahoots with or being manipulated or set up by intelligence services surely to blame Russia…meanwhile another uk rehashing-?- latest- developments about two persons of interest returning the next day and being under protection of the President….I think at the earlier time there was a mention of investigation of “someone bringing over the forgotten wheatmeal” and immediately returning…then once again intelligence sources claiming “Gordon” and his team of 6-8 sidekicks involved in setting up the whole operation….. still no forthcoming explanaition of the airplane inspection either….lots comments that Skripals are silent etc….surely they are being “advised” on how to present any personal evidence they have to some sort of investigative tribunal that logically will be set up now due to the OPCW being judge and jury? Regarding buying out Bailey…still not sure if he actually went home beforw going to hospital…is his car preserved as evidence and bought too or been decontaminated or did he use a police force car….
Bang on Cue….two more unfortunates succumb to ‘Novichok’ in Amesbury, within spitting distance of Porton Down and are being treated…you guessed it…in Salisbury District Hospital. This is running wall to wall on the Beeb, Sky, ITV this morning and everyone crowing to the same script. Various ill-at-ease officials (some in ill fitting uniform) are reading from scripts to camera, and for a supposed HazChem incident, local attending police officers are not even wearing latex disposable gloves. The continuity and production values this time around are even worse than the last time.
They are cranking up to mention ‘Russia’…..anything to torpedo the World Cup, which is a runaway success for Russia, but the biggest worry is the chat in Helsinki with Trump and Putin where peace may break out.
The big fear for the Tory government is what if England get through to the World Cup Finals and horror of horrors end up facing off with Russia and actually win? No ministers or Royals and just a poor Ambassador to front it?
Plus the problems they are having with Brexit, Tory back-bench revolutionaries and the smouldering DUP in Ulster who want the Northern Ireland border question resolved or confidence-and-supply gets turned off……
..and what if people start asking questions about Yemen and involvements in Syria?
Desperate days for the May regime….my theory?….one cat escaped the Skripals residence. These two may have stroked the cat. Find the cat….
Tongue in cheek of course, but is it any less beleivable than the second-rate compulsively awful soap opera we see here. HMG may have to pay top rates to buy Amesbury and pull it down, or even better fence it off and use it for BW experiments….
If England beat Sweden, it will get a lot crazier. I kid you not ladies and gentlemen. View on, the implosion at high level is becoming fascinating. This is how starts die….botched Brexit will complete the denoument.
Good article. Among the four main types of shellfish poisoning is something called ‘Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning’ which is a well-recognised and potentially deadly phenomenon. The other types of poisoning from shellfish can be equally dangerous or spectacular – Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning and Neurotoxic Shellfish Poisoning. Some of these syndromes can be aquired from eating fish such as anchovies and sardines too. The type causing diarrhoea is the commonest, and most people who ear shellfish would have had a brush with it.
The toxins causing the syndromes come from marine plankton and micro-organisms and accumulate in filter-feeders and those creatures which prey on them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paralytic_shellfish_poisoning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesic_shellfish_poisoning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotoxic_shellfish_poisoning
Tuesday, 6th March, 2018. Deep in an earth-covered bunker, in the bowls of the highly secret government research establishment at Porton Down, Martha is reading a Hello magazine in the cold, soulless white light flickering from the dusty fluorescent tubes quietly humming in the pressed metal mounting above her head. Her Boss, Daryn, is pulling a sicky. Head of Department Dr. Syn walks in with a suspicious looking container which she fears might contain a sample of something for analysis. “Where’s Daryn?” he demands, accusingly.
“On leave, sir,” she replies, guiltilily.
He coughs. “An ex-Russian double agent who used to work for MI6 but has now retired has been poisoned, probably by a Russian assassin, trained in the use of a secret Russian nerve agent called Novichock which the Russians have been developing in secret for such purposes over the past ten years, having invented it in the 1970s. Here is a container containing a sample of his blood for analysis. Can you please analyse it and report back to my office ASAP.” It was not a question.
He hands Martha the container, turns and walks towards the grey metal door. “Sir!”, cries Martha, desperately. “How do I know what Novi – wha’ever – looks like?”
Dr.Syn sighs, rolls his eyes to heaven, turns around and explains, patronisingly, “Go the the Maddison Wing. Ask for the container containing a specimen sample of the highly lethal, fast-acting Novichok. Put some in the spectrometer and get a read-out. Then put the blood sample in the machine and get a read-out and comp-“.
Martha interrupts him. “Yes, sir, thank you sir. I’ll do it as quickly as possible, sir.”
Forty-five minutes later, Martha is in Dr. Syn’s window-less office, illuminated by twin fluorescent tubes sheltering under a white pressed-steel fitting mounted on the rough-cast concrete ceiling. She beams, happily. “No doubt about it, sir. It’s Novi… er, the Russian poison. Look, sir!” she blurts out, excitedly, putting the two read-outs on his grey, government-issue all-metal desk. “It’s the same. You can just make out the same pattern. Here! Look at the test sample! See those bars?”
Dr. Syn rolls his eyes to heaven. Martha continues, enthusiastically. “Now, look at the blood sample! Obviously it has loads of impurities in it, but see the shape of those bars? It’s the same! It’s Novichok!!
Dr. Syn reaches for the internal phone specially cleared to carry top-secret conversations. From the centre of the earpiece, he hears a disembodied voice: “Yes?”
“Good morning, sir. We have the results. You’re right. It is, it’s, it is…” He is interrupted and listens carefully, sitting to attention. He puts the phone down. looks at Martha and says, “You are to take these readouts to Motorolaman! Now!”
As Martha strides purposefully toward the door, Dr. Syn enquires hesitatingly, “You did, er… clean the machine thoroughly after calibrating it with the test sample, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” she lies, crossing the fingers of her free hand as she trots up the metal staircase and wades through the deep-pile royal blue carpet of the executive corridor.
After she leaves the CEO’s oak panelled office, he puts his scuffed salesman’s shoes up on the polished mahogany desk and picks up one of the read-outs. Definitely Novichok,, he thinks, looking at the vertical bars on the single A4 sheet of copy-grade government-issue paper. So pure. No impurities. Must be military grade…
The End.
I know it’s not a subject for joking about, but it is possible to think of alternative explanations, even if the above ones are completely OTT. Having said that, Porton Down must have had a sample of the stuff to start with, which blows one of our government’s basic assumptions clean out of the water: the poison need not have come form Russia.