On Being a Dissenting Voice in 2018 863

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UPDATE

The site is just back up at 16.42 on 21 March having managed to slip like the Tardis into another dimension and thus dodge the massive DOS attack we are under. over 50,000 separate IP addresses simultaneously throwing up millions of hits. The attack has not actually stopped and does seem to have a human intelligence changing terms and directing it, which could make for an interesting afternoon. Once our excellent techs get a minute from fighting it, we will post the cloudfare graphs as evidence.

I just thought I might give you a little taste of what it means to your personal life to express dissent from the government line in the UK in 2018. Let me start with this combined effort from the UK’s most popular website, Guido Fawkes, which fanatically supports the government, and the Blairite crew at “The Guardian”.

The red ink is original.

Now it is true that, when I was sacked as Ambassador by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for blowing the whistle on extraordinary rendition and the Blair government’s misuse of intelligence from torture, I went into a terrible depression and voluntarily spent ten days or so in St Thomas Hospital (not a mental illness facility) for treatment. I have never tried to keep this secret, indeed it is a major part of my memoir “Murder in Samarkand”. It is also true, as I have always acknowledged, that I have had other less serious depressive episodes treated at home and been diagnosed as bipolar since I was 20.

That we stigmatise anybody who has ever had a mental illness, write them off and view their views, on anything, as invalid, is an attitude I had hoped we had moved past last century. Indeed, if this hatchet job was done on anybody writing within the Overton window, then the Guardian would be dedicating editorials to condemning it. We have in fact moved to the old Soviet position, where disagreement with the official line equals mental illness. I quite confess this sort of thing does in fact hurt me – if you cut me, do I not bleed?

The use of the term “conspiracy theorist” has been used to denigrate my views, ever since Jack Straw as Foreign Secretary lied to Parliament denying that the UK ever obtained intelligence from torture and denying the existence of the extraordinary rendition programme, which I was supposed to have fantasised. Anyone interested in this history can watch this series of videos of my evidence to a Parliamentary Committee on the subject. It explains why I start nowadays from a position of being so hated by the British state and its acolytes, and also of course enables you to judge for yourself whether I should be ignored as insane.

Ever since then, the state and corporate media have described me as a “conspiracy theorist”. Even though there is now acceptance that extraordinary rendition did happen and presumably they, somewhere inside, know I was telling the truth. I find people are taken aback to discover, for example, that I broadly accept that there was no US government involvement in 9/11 (other than minimising the Saudi role) and 9/11 discussion is banned on this blog – [warning it still is].

I cannot in fact conceive of a more outlandish conspiracy theory than that the Russian government secretly manufactured and stockpiled novichoks, hidden from the OPCW, and secretly trained assassins, only to blow the whole operation on a retired spy they let out of jail ages ago. Yet nobody calls Boris Johnson a “conspiracy theorist” for positing that.

But the abuse is not confined to what people publish about me. I receive some extremely unpleasant emails of which this is an example:

I do hope Mr Temis can get money back on his anger management sessions. But there has been rather a lot of this, including some by old fashioned mail. which I find myself prodding suspiciously before opening :-).

There is of course an open effort to extend the term “anti-semitic” to embrace any criticism of Israel. It is also particularly used by Blairites to attack anybody taking any position seen as supportive of Jeremy Corbyn. I am not in the least anti-semitic. Jewish people have made a disproportionate, indeed magnificent, contribution to the world in the fields of science, music, literature, commerce and others. That does not alter the fact that Israel is a rogue state when it comes to chemical weapons, the subject currently under discussion. It refuses to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and destroy its chemical weapons stocks, and refuses to join the OPCW.

Plainly someone attacked the Skripals. In stating that it is not the case that Russia was the only state who could have done it, I have included Israel amongst other possibilities. Israel might wish to frame Russia for the deed, as Russian actions in Syria have severely conflicted with Israeli ambitions in Syria and Lebanon. But I have never said it was, or was most likely to be, Israel – it could be the CIA framing Russia, it could be a non-state actor entirely (which I am inclined to think most likely – this could come from those close to a victim of Skripal’s treachery, though I still think the Orbis intelligence connection has been overlooked).

Some of the most vitriolic abuse has come from state and corporate media journalists. Falsely categorising me as an insane racist allows them to ignore any challenge to the establishment line on Salisbury and absolves them, in their own minds, from any dereliction of duty in not questioning it.

In a chilling example of the way they move to crush dissent, here a prominent Blairite corporate media journalist, James Bloodworth, attempts to ensure that consideration of other possibilities than the government line is not carried even in the private domain. He harasses and bullies an individual attempting to force him to accept Mr Bloodworth’s version of what I had said, rather than what I had actually said. When Mr Law (who as a lecturer in philosophy presumably has an attachment to intellectual honesty) refuses, Bloodworth sanctions him by pulling out of his literary festival.


It is very difficult to understand what is happening in the UK today, but when the BBC on its flagship news programme holds a discussion of the Salisbury attack under a huge photo-shopped picture of the leader of the opposition in a Russian hat standing outside the Kremlin, it is plain a fundamental shift has happened in society. The Salisbury attack has perhaps taught us something massively more important than any of the stuff about chemical weapons, and that is that Britain is further along the road to becoming an authoritarian state than we had realised.

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863 thoughts on “On Being a Dissenting Voice in 2018”

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  • N_

    The British kingdom’s ambassador to Russia, Laurie Bristow, a man who chums up with the “oligarchs’ friend” Prince Michael of Kent on the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce, and who when he was at Trinity College, Cambridge, wrote his PhD thesis on the fascist writer Ezra Pound, is refusing to go to a Russian Foreign Ministry meeting today to discuss the Brit poshboy regime’s allegation that the Russian government arranged the Salisbury attack.

    Presumably he knows Britain has no case.

    Refusing to go to a meeting when asked by the Foreign Ministry – that means the guy will soon be flying back to Britain, propelled by a Russian boot up his crapper, right?

  • Sharp Ears

    What a seedy world these spivs occupy.

    Cambridge Analytica chief executive who claimed he was ‘humouring’ undercover reporters when he ‘boasted he could use beautiful Ukrainian sex workers and spies to swing elections’ is suspended from his job
    Senior executives, including CEO Alexander Nix, were filmed by Channel 4
    Mr Nix told reporters they can ‘send some girls around to the candidate’s house’
    Also boasted of firm’s work for Trump campaign and said they created ‘crooked Hillary’ brand
    Mr Nix has since been suspended and replaced by Alexander Tayler, who was also secretly filmed
    Cambridge Analytica allegedly tapped more than 50m U.S. Facebook profiles
    Company ‘entirely refutes’ it uses bribes, entrapment, or any untrue information
    ‘We routinely undertake conversations with prospective clients to try to tease out any unethical or illegal intentions,’ a spokesman said
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5524263/Cambridge-Analytica-chief-executive-Alexander-Nix-suspended.html

    • fred

      “Cambridge Analytica allegedly tapped more than 50m U.S. Facebook profiles”

      And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

      • Node

        Agreed, Fred.

        Facebook is designed to allow analysis of users habits and beliefs and to subsequently display targeted messages which are tailored to manipulate and exploit them. We are only getting this glimpse into the abyss because someone has prioritised attacking Trump over maintaining Facebook’s ‘secrets.’

        The lesson to be learned is nothing to do with Trump or Cambridge Analytica. It is that Facebook is manipulating opinions 24/7 on behalf of powerful interests. It doesn’t just do this every 5 years for a presidential election. You can bet your bottom dollar that right now it is running an algorithm called “Demonise Russia.”

        • fred

          I don’t know, I was surprised to see someone was promoting the Craig Murray blog on my Facebook feed a while back. It sort of coincided with that sudden influx of new poster to the comments section. Might be just coincidence of course.

        • Ben

          Breitbart readership down 50 % mostly due to new Facebook protocols so it has EVERYTHING to do with Trump.

        • Node

          I have just one facebook ‘friend’ – my daughter-in-law – so I can lurk in the background and see photos of my grand-daughter. I have never ‘liked’ or posted anything on fb. ‘A few months ago, fb suggested I might want to be friends with John Goss! The only possible mechanism I can imagine is that facebook is cookie-tracking me through every site with a share button that I visit, including this one.

          Fb makes other uncanny connections to my friends, relatives and acquaintances. When it suggests someone I don’t know, I wonder if it might be an anonymous poster on this or some other site. I only recognised the John Goss connection because he posts under his real name.

  • jazza

    the problem now is that the british government is in an untenable position – in what way can the british people seek to have a say in this and get rid of them – this government is not acting in the interest of the population, undoubtedly they are a bunch of fascists and are acting outside the rule of law and allsorts of international treaties to which they as a nation are signed up to?

    • Harry Law

      Jazza, The Government are acting outside International treaties. Here is why….
      “There is a fundamental contradiction written into the UN Charter on the one hand, article 2[1] states; “The organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” But, on the other hand, Article 23 of the Charter grants five of its Members permanent seats on the Security Council, and Article 27 gives each of them a veto over decisions of the Council. Clearly, all Members are equal, but some Members are more equal than others. Thus all five veto wielding powers the US, UK, France, China and Russia AND their friends are above International law, for all time. So that should all four veto wielding members gang up on the US, the US simply veto’s the Resolution it is then consigned to the memory hole.
      Academic lawyers in their thousands may protest that taking military action against Iraq for instance was illegal because it lacked proper authorisation by the Security Council, but it is of no consequence in the real world when there is no possibility of the UK, or its political leadership, being convicted for taking such action. It is meaningless to describe an action as illegal if there is no expectation that the perpetrator of the action will be convicted by a competent judicial body. In the real world, an action is legal unless a competent judicial body rules that it is illegal. http://www.david-morrison.org.uk/iraq/ags-legal-advice.pdf

  • Gordon Hastie

    “The Salisbury attack has perhaps taught us something massively more important than any of the stuff about chemical weapons, and that is that Britain is further along the road to becoming an authoritarian state than we had realised.”

    Quite. It has been a very depressing ten days or so. Keep up the great work, Mr Murray.

  • SANDRA CRAWFORD

    Although I couldn’t stand Margaret Thatcher there is one quote of hers I did like. That is, “when one is attacked personally, it is because they have not got a single argument left.” She was always hypocriticial of course but the quote is so true. They are doing this rather evil pernicious attacking because they know you are right, and worse for them, you are having an effect. Keep going you are one of the much needed sane voices we have left.

    • fred

      “Can anyone say exactly when it firstcappeared in the press that the Skripals were poisoned with a nerve agent? At first the poison wasn’t specified.”

      Yes, this blog was a sleepy bacwater in those days, I remember there was much speculation about the poison used, we knew it had to be something very potent, polonium, ricin, sarin, a glass of water from the Glasgow Royal Childrens Hospital…

    • Tony_0pmoc

      Pyotr Grozny,

      For the first 27 hours the story was Fentanyl poisoning. It changed shortly after I wrote the following, below. The next day March 6th it was “Russian spy fighting for life after being ‘poisoned’ by unknown substance in Salisbury”
      By March 7th it was this, written by Sharp Ears. So it took them over 3 days to come up with “nerve agent”, yet they had hazchem suits, and photographers on the job, the same evning as the “poisoning” when they were saying it was fentanyl. It all looked pre-planned and pre-staged to me, otherwise the photographers and hazchems , wouldn’t have been there within hours because someone puked up on a town bench.

      “Sharp Ears
      March 7, 2018 at 17:42

      Attempted murder. An unnamed nerve agent was administered. Means of administration not revealed. There is no threat to the public said Chief Medical Officer.

      Tony_0pmoc
      March 5, 2018 at 18:25

      So what has escaped from Porton Down, which is very near Salisbury?

      The fentanyl story as it stands, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Fentanyl may well be a dangerous opiod drug if misused, but it has been available for medical use on prescription since the 1960’s

      Of course it could just be a “training exercise”, but why not tell the truth? Some people legitimately using fentanyl for a medical condition, may well be terrorised, by what is probably a load of old bollocks.

      https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/salisbury-hospital-closes-ae-deals-12130467

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porton_Down

      Tony

  • reel guid

    Alt-right figure Steve Bannon is said by The Herald to have visited Scotland last week and taken part in a get together at Gleneagles of the think tank Scotland International Ltd. During his visit to these shores Bannon is also reported to have met with Farage and Rees-Mogg.

    The Herald however gives a hilariously hypocritical quote from Labour MSP James Kelly who said of the Gleneagles visit:

    “Both the UK and Scottish governments should be doing everything they can to ensure merchants of hate are not allowed a market in Britain”.

    Said Mr. Kelly whose recent scuppering of the OBFA encouraged the merchants of hate group the Union Bears to strut their odious sectarian stuff on Scottish streets.

    • reel guid

      Didn’t realise it was a few months ago. Kelly’s hypocrisy still stands though.

  • TomGard

    Seems no commentator took notice of an article by By Prof Alastair Hay, BBC yesterday:
    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43431537

    He confirms most of what has been objected to the official narrative and the british demeanor against Russia. Namely it posits, Russia had not been in breach of obligations to OPCW if it had kept some quantities of the substances in question on a laboratory scale. As Craig conveyed, in 2013, five years after “Novichok” came publikly known, the Scientific Advisory Board of OPCW, including Robin Black from PD, decided against starting a process to include the research on that stuff in the procedures of sheduled substances.

    Also since yesterday the witch hund faded down. But beware, this is far from over! They wait for the decisions of Jeffrey Feltman, who is their asset at the UN. Also in 2013 the findings of the OPCW in the investigation of the Al Ghouta- False Flag were, scientifically spoken, inconclusive at best. Some of the laboratory results came from just one place, while the other two couldn’t reproduce them. They found an adjuvant in the traces of Sarin, that is not normally used in military grade stuff and therefore a marker of “kitchen sarin”. By no means the investigation could prove, that the gas was delivered by the syrian military. Nevertheless the heads of the OPCW lied and decided the guilt of Syria proven. Foreseeable it will be the same this time.

    • Andrew Carter

      Well, Tom, the Russians shot down MH-17 (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43457694 for what the Russians did to THAT guy!) and so they must be guilty of everything stretching back as far as the Black Death. the betrayal of Christ and the Original Sin.

      What don’t you get about that?

      Repeat after me: “RUSSIA = BAD NEWS”

      NB its getting hard to keep track of news, because Google is suppressing so many articles, and many others are being taken down shortly after publication. In one last year the BBC was extolling Turkey as having the highest GDP growth in the G20; the article listed 13 countries, but not, of course, Russia, which experienced GDP growth significantly greater than that reported by Turkey. Just pretend its not there, and its no longer true. Simples

      • TomGard

        I’m afraid, you are not right, Andrew. As with MH17 the real target is Berlin, Paris, Brussels. To the Kremlin the Job is mostly done long before. Brussels conceded lightning fast a Brexit-postponement to british conditions (just for example). What do you think was the leverage? “Please, don’t do this to our poor russian friends no more?” Or was it rather fear of the consequences of an “incident” like in June 2011, after Germany abstained from the UN-resolution to bomb the shit out of Libya. Then a E.coli chimera named EAggHC, a combination of two formerly separated strains, “popped up” all over Northern Germany, spreading within hours. After some three days the spook was over, besides cases of secondary infections. Since then the pathogen vanished completely.
        About fifty people, mostlly women and kids, died and from the roughly 1400 people infected an unknown number was crippled. Mostly loss of kidneys, but also damages to liver and the nervous system have occured. The financial damage has not been accounted for, but it can’t be much less then 20 billions.

    • TomGard

      Sorry for the bad typos, I had to finish quickly and I havn’t written english for decades.

      • Node

        Sorry for the bad typos, I had to finish quickly and I havn’t written english for decades.

        Compared to many who post here, your typos are no worse and your views much more interesting. Please continue posting.

    • Squeeth

      Yes, I expect that the lull will end with an OPCW endorsement in a couple of days.

  • Trowbridge H. Ford

    Is there any reporting in the British controlled press of the British Ambassador to Russia refusal to attend Foreign Minister Lavrov’s press conference on the Salisbury poisoning?

      • Trowbridge H. Ford

        No, he is Dr.. Laurie Bristow, quite obviously not a seven ywar old, and is well versed in Russian studies, though his Cambridge Ph.D. is on poet Ezra Pound. At least he somewhat avoided Ghristopher Andrew;’s crap on the subject

      • Trowbridge H. Ford

        That’s where I got the story from, and I no longer consider Reuters to be British media ever since Thomson Reuters included my phone as being one for West Haven;’s Steven Nickerson in a 44-pagr printout relating to his domestic crimes, especially his connection to John Wheeler’s alleged assassin Levene, for the American counterterrorists.

  • Sagittarius Rising

    This article is in the Daily Mail today. It refers to a British doctor called David Nott working in Syria. Whilst not directly related to the thread in question, it pertains to the wider issue of what happened in Salisbury and whodunnit:-

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5525391/British-surgeons-computer-hacked-Syrian-hospital.html

    A British surgeon fears his computer was targeted, allowing hackers to gain the coordinates of a Syrian hospital that was then destroyed by suspected Russian warplanes.
    London-based trauma surgeon David Nott has given up several weeks of each year to operate without pay on victims of conflict in the world’s most dangerous trouble spots for the past 25 years.

    And Former Cabinet minister Priti Patel said she would not be surprised if Russia was behind the bombing.
    The Tory MP for Witham said: ‘It’s a huge, huge issue. We should all pay an enormous tribute to David Nott. He is an amazing individual who in the most difficult circumstances has been saving lives in Syria while the bombs of Assad have been falling down.
    ‘It would hardly be surprising if Russian interference was behind the bombing of this hospital. It speaks of the appalling regime and the lack of respect for human life. We need to put pressure on Russia and ask what has happened here.’
    Professor Alan Woodward, from the Surrey Centre for Cyber Security, told the Daily Telegraph that Mr Nott’s phone or computer could have been targeted during the operation.

    Does this report sound familiar, convenient even? White Helmet-ish, perhaps? Like them but not them. Of a type developed by…..

    From the Guardian, in an article dated 23 December 2017, it reveals exactly who David Nott is. He is Hamish de Bretton-Gordon’s fellow director at Doctors Under Fire – the latter being the very same chemical weapons expert who introduced ‘novochuk’ into the public domain (officially) on Sunday 11 March 2018, 24 hours before this name was suggested in Parliament:-

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/23/dying-children-syria-need-more-kind-words-cancer-ghouta

    Dr David Nott and Hamish de Bretton-Gordon are directors of Doctors Under Fireand advisers to UOSSM.

    One of Mr de Bretton-Gordon’s postal addresses is listed in 192 as Salisbury.

    Yes, that is also the very same Priti Patel who surreptitiously visited Israel last summer, for which she was dutifully sacked – no doubt, not for visiting secretly but for being found out that she was visiting secretly.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41853561

    No civil servants were present but Ms Patel was accompanied by Lord Polak, honorary president of Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), an influential lobbying organisation that has access to wealthy party donors.

    For the sake of clarity, where the word ‘Conservative’ is mentioned, may I please suggest that sometimes, often perhaps, what is actually present is ‘liberal’ or ‘neo-liberal’ instead? Just as Mrs May would wish to suggest she is a ‘Conservative’ Prime Minister, there is nothing remotely ‘conservative’ (lower and upper-case c) about her, or her policies.

    It may not always be necessary to make such an appropriation – only to bear in mind that there are times when such distinctions need to be made – when if they are not, the ‘wrong’ people may be held responsible for that which they are not guilty of – whilst those who are responsible will continue to remain out of view for having been wearing a coat that is not their own.

    • Andrew Carter

      ask yourself this: who was providing the telecoms infrastructure which allowed people in Eastern Ghouta to access Skype, Snapchat and other services? You can bet your arse it wasn’t the noble Rebels or the truly heroic White Helmets – it was the Syrian Arab Republic, which has carried on providing utilities and basic services throughout the Islamic insurgency

      In other news – absent a plea for assistance under NATO Ch7, could anyone explain to me what the hell Europe’s supposed energy security has got to do with the US State Department? https://www.rt.com/business/421900-us-sanctions-nord-stream-companies/

      This is not about “security” or “democracy” or “human rights” – this is just the military wing of the US Energy sector

    • N_

      “London-based trauma surgeon David Nott has given up several weeks of each year to operate without pay.”

      Oh the altruistic darling. Did he get paid for helping out with the warmongering anti-Russian propaganda?

    • N_

      “Professor Alan Woodward, from the Surrey Centre for Cyber Security, told the Daily Telegraph that Mr Nott’s phone or computer could have been targeted during the operation.”

      No shit!

      Cheque is in the post. Funding application will be waved through.

  • Ross

    This story is now well on its way down the memory hole; just like the anthrax affair. PMQ’s was strangely absent any mention.

  • N_

    “Mum who left tragic tot in car before it rolled into river faces cop quiz“.

    Yes, good idea for the police to question the last known person to have had contact with the car, I’d have thought, and who told everyone it had been stolen with her daughter inside.

  • Pyotr Grozny

    I’m listening to the conference convened for ambassadors in Moscow and my wife is translating some of this. A man from the Russian MoD is saying that if there is a chemical attack you have to evacuate the whole town, which of course wasn’t done. Following from answers to my question a few posts above it took 2-3 days to identify a chemical agent which might seem slow but then such attacks are unprecedented. Will training now be given so that all hospitals have someone who can diagnose these things more quickly? Any comments welcome.

    • N_

      Do you know which ambassadors were invited? Did any other ambassadors fart in the host country’s face the way Laurie “Ezra Pound” Bristow did?

      • Pyotr Grozny

        RT just said that Ministry of Foreign Affairs had summoned ambassadors to a meeting on the case. There has been a question/statement from somone from the British Embassy which I estimate lasted 2-3 minutes. Hopefully we’ll get a report soon.

        • N_

          You may have meant to post this link, from the Daily Mail from less than an hour ago, rather than the 6 March one.

          The Russian MoD guy who said that a chemical attack requires a whole town to be evacuated is mistaken. Nerve agent can be used against single-person targets without that scale of impact. Israel used it against Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Jordan in 1997. And somebody, possibly North Korea, used it against Kim Jong-nam in Malaysia in 2017.

          (Meanwhile the clothes of Yasser Arafat, murdered in 2004, were found to contain polonium. The Israeli government had announced its intention the previous year to assassinate him, and a proposed UN Security Council resolution condemning their intention was vetoed by the United States.)

  • Dave

    Speculation I know, but the false flags are becoming so obvious, they may be a counter false flag tactic by patriots, faction fighting, within the secret services/police to expose those behind the false flags attacks and bring down the government!

    • N_

      They may be dead. There’s been little info from the hospital since the consultant there in charge of emergency medicine wrote to the Times to say that no patients in Salisbury had suffered symptoms of nerve agent poisoning. Boris Johnson says they’re both in a coma.

      • Mary Paul

        Oh well if Boris says so it must be true. And how come we have not had a photo of DS Bailey ,thumbs up,from his hospital bed?

        • Mary Paul

          Oh well if Boris says so it must be true. And how come we have not had a photo of DS Bailey ,thumbs up,from his hospital bed? Also nointerviews from any of the staff in Zizi or the Mill after a couple of early interviews with Zizi kitchen staff who said they couldn’t have been poisoned there, all gone quiet. what about The Mill? is it still behind a steel barrier. Has its business gone to pot?No interviews with Mayer’s/owners of either business? Why not? So many questions and no answers. people will start demanding them soon mark my words.

        • N_

          I was only reporting what Boris Johnson said. All we know is that three named people are indisposed.

    • fred

      Logic suggests they will be in a military hospital somewhere, they are the ones trained and equipped to treat chemical weapons injuries.

      • MJ

        Logic suggests that if a nerve agent was involved they will be in a cemetery somewhere.

  • N_

    And Passover is coming.

    Many of the vilest Israeli military operations have been given religious names, such as “Operation Passover Cleaning” for the capture of the remaining parts of Haifa and the expulsion of tens of thousands of Arab residents with many hundreds killed.

  • Zhanglan

    I am watching the Russian ambassadorial briefing; apart from a genuine concern that the translator is about to break down in tears (she has just been replaced as I type this), two things are clear to me

    1. The Russians are blurting out everything they know, in the naive manner of someone who is genuinely innocent and really can’t understand why allegations are being made against them. They are saying too much, becuase

    2. Nobody in the West is listening; the UK representative has upped the ante even further, and clearly has no interest in hearing anything the Russians may have to say

    Any first year Law student will know that it is impossible to prove a negative: because of this, the burden of proof is on the prosecution, rather than the defence, and whilst the UK has no case to make, the Russians are falling into the trap of thinking there is a reasoned debate to be had about this incident. There isn’t – this isn’t “due process”, it’s a lynch mob

    • Zhanglan

      God, that Russian guy just ripped the French representative a new asshole – how can they express “total solidarity” with the UK when they (the French) have NO evidence whatsoever – do you believe that reflexively holding Russia accountable is more important than conducting an investigation?

      • Zhanglan

        The Yanks are now calling the Russians cowards and liars to their face.

        Fill up the car, buy some tinned food, and get the candles ready

        • N_

          @Zhanglan – Thanks for these reports. Where are you watching this?

          Sorry to hear about the interpreter getting upset. That’s rare. Did someone use some barrack-room slang she didn’t know, or what?

          Are the US contingent actually diplomats? If so, they must be following an unusual etiquette book that allows them to call their hosts cowards and liars in public, in their hosts’ own country.

          • Agent Green

            US have no diplomats. They staff their positions with morons, oafs and neocon fanatics, mainly.

    • Pyotr Grozny

      Not my impression. Russians are very clever at this sort of thing. Questions/statements from representatives of Sweden and Germany so far.

      • Zhanglan

        I do not think the Russian side handled that particularly adroitly; their hearts were undoubtedly in the right place, I sincerely believe that their hands are clean, but they came across as slightly naive in the face of an orchestrated ambush by not only NATO members, but also Sweden.

        I don’t think the Russians have succeeded in convincing anyone of anything by this exercise; however, if anyone was in any doubt about how rabidly destructive the West is, that illusion has now been dispelled. There is no-one for the Russians to have a sober, constructive dialogue with – this is not about two sick Russian citizen, its not even about nerve agents – this is just a Punch & Judy show

    • Pyotr Grozny

      Apologies for any superfluous points above, I hadn’t realised is was in English on RT. New Scientist Article looks great, could anyone with a subscription give more detail, please.

  • knuckles

    Cambridge Analytica and its parent company seem to be a company owned and operated the British elite. Some shocking stuff here;

    http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2018/03/20/scl-a-very-british-coup/

    ”Turnbull previously spent 18 years at Bell Pottinger, heading up the Pentagon funded PR drive in occupied Iraq which included the production of fake al-Qaeda videos.”

    ”The firm is headed up by Nigel Oakes, another old Etonian, who, according to the website PowerBase has links to the British royals and was once rumoured to be an Mi5 spy.

    In 1992, Oakes described his work in a trade journal as using the “same techniques as Aristotle and Hitler. … We appeal to people on an emotional level to get them to agree on a functional level.””

    ”The President of SLC is Sir Geoffrey Pattie, a former Conservative MP and the Defence Minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government. Pattie also co-founded Terrington Management which lists BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin among its clients.”

    I’m guessing killing people to protect a multi billion pound business is second nature to them?

  • David Henry

    You make some good points. I too see the BBC in a new light. No more nice Auntie BBC much more a propaganda machine for the British State.

    Producing doctored images of Corbyn in front of the Kremlin is not what a Public Service Broadcaster should be doing that is the Daily Mail and Daily Express area.

    • reel guid

      What we in the Scottish independence movement have been saying about the BBC for years.

  • Republicofscotland

    So it’s begining to look like no nerve agent was used in Salisbury, if Dr Stephen Davis is to be believed.

    But referring to the doctors statement three people were poisoned. But no nerve agent was used. So who poisoned them? And why does the British government continue with the ludicrous line of Russia is guilty ( Boris Johnson overwhelmingly likely, and of a type).

    In this instance in my opinion, the British government are using the poisoning of the Skripals to blacken the Russian government and ergo hope that Russia then suffers more sanctions, and if successful in their machinations then I’m sure an attack in Syria, using a similar agent would be traced back to Russia, in a bid to alienate them in the ME.

    Yes Putin is a dictator, and the election was more than likely rigged, however the Machivallian attempt by the British government to claim that a nerve agent was used on English soil and that Russia carried it out, when no legitimate evidence is made available, shows to me anyway that Putin’s regime and the Westminster one aren’t that far apart in certain areas.

    It will say a lot about the OPCW, if they declare a nerve agent was used and that it’s Russian in origin.

    • reel guid

      Yes Ros. Your point about similarities between the Russian and UK governments lends itself to the mimetic theories of some social scientists that conflict or strife is usually more likely between two parties that are very similar than it is between two parties that are very different.

      • Republicofscotland

        Ah reel guid.

        Yes indeed, this Skirpal event has moved so fast that we’ve not had time discuss a whole host of unionist bollocks, however I can understand Craig wanting to keep loosely on topic for now.

    • N_

      All the OPCW can know is what was in the sample that the Brits gave them. They can’t know what was used, or whether anything was used.

      When no major media organ follows up the statement by Stephen Davies, and when there are no sackings, no prosecutions, no judicial involvement, and not a peep out of any parliamentary committee, when the BBC, the state broadcaster, publishes Tory propaganda photos as if they were independently-chosen wallpaper, it should be clear, even to those to whom it wasn’t already, that there is no large-scale independent media in Britain any more than there is in Russia. The dictatorship in Russia is organised slightly differently at the top from the poshboy dictatorship in Britain; that’s all.

      “In this instance in my opinion, the British government are using the poisoning of the Skripals to blacken the Russian government and ergo hope that Russia then suffers more sanctions, and if successful in their machinations then I’m sure an attack in Syria, using a similar agent would be traced back to Russia, in a bid to alienate them in the ME.”

      alienate them in the ME start WW3.

      Most Syrians prefer the Russians to Daesh by a very long way, as almost any human being would. And the US and Britain are now backing Al Qaeda. Sadly few in the general population in Britain realise any of this.

      It is interesting that Sweden is on-side with Britain and the US at the Moscow meeting. Sweden is no longer a neutral country and is likely to fight alongside NATO when the war breaks out. There could even be a provocation in that region before the one that many feel is imminent in Syria.

      “It will say a lot about the OPCW, if they declare a nerve agent was used and that it’s Russian in origin.

      It all seems to be coming to a head around Easter time.

      • Republicofscotland

        “All the OPCW can know is what was in the sample that the Brits gave them. They can’t know what was used, or whether anything was used.”

        N.

        Exactly, which opens up a whole barrage of questions. If (and I’ve seen no condemnation of it) Dr Davis is correct, and no nerve agent was used, then how can the OPCW come back with a verdict that implicates Russia in the use of a nerve agent.

        Also the sample handed over to the OPCW by Britain, if it’s not a nerve agent then surely the OPCW would admit that immediately in a press statement.

        Or a sample of a nerve agent could’ve been handed over to the OPCW, that was synthesised at Porton Down, the attempt could be to pass it off as of a Russian type, bear in mind that the OPCW wouldn’t ask to test any chemical from Porton Down, and then we have to take into account that other nations can create this type of nerve agent as well, and without access to their facilities as well, then how can the OPCW nail down its origins.

        The OPCW’s findings one way or the other are going to be very interesting indeed.

  • Harry Law

    The British Foreign Office said there was “no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian state was culpable”.
    “The onus remains on the Russian state to account for their actions and to comply with their international obligations,”
    No it does not, the onus is on the complainant to use due process, first with…… “States Parties should, whenever possible, first make every effort to clarify and resolve, through exchange of information and consultations among themselves, any matter which may cause doubt about compliance with this Convention” Article 1X consultations, cooperation and fact finding [OPCW].
    This has not happened, instead accusations, threats and the expelling of diplomats has occurred without any evidence or due process being presented or applied, this is a disgraceful way for the UK Government to behave and should be condemned by anyone who believes in diplomacy or at the very least the due process of law.

  • Melissa north

    I support Murray/Corbyn. British justice has always upheld the sensible principle of proof before accusation. Where has that gone? Iraq was more than enough to encourage caution. Memory loss??

    • N_

      Putin is Vladimir Spiridonovich, because his dad was called Spiridon. His paternal grandfather had the same first name, and was chef to both Lenin and Stalin – and also to Tsar Nicholas II, I seem to recall from one of Simon Sebag Montefiore’s (surprisingly good!) two biographies of the moustachioed Georgian.

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