Wheel Out the Skripal Story Again 364


Just as the World Cup had forced the British media to grudgingly acknowledge the obvious truth that Russia is an extremely interesting country inhabited, like everywhere else, by mostly pleasant and attractive people, we have a screaming reprise of the “Salisbury incident” dominating the British media. Two people have been taken ill in Amesbury from an unknown substance, which might yet be a contaminated recreational drug, but could conceivably be from contact with the substance allegedly used on the Skripals, presumably some of which was somewhere indoors all this time as we were told it could be washed away and neutralised by water.

Amesbury is not Salisbury – it is 10 miles away. Interestingly enough Porton Down is between Amesbury and Salisbury. Just three miles away from Muggleton Road, Amesbury. The news reports are not mentioning that much.


“I am all out of ideas Inspector. What can possibly be the source of these mysterious poisonings?”

Neither Porton Down nor the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has any idea where the substance to which the Skripals were allegedly exposed was made. Boris Johnson’s great “coup” of obtaining a majority vote at the OPCW to expand its powers to place blame for chemical attacks, has proven rather otiose as the OPCW has no evidence on which to base any blame for Salisbury. In fact, four months on, May and Johnson’s shrill blaming of Russia remains entirely, 100% evidence free.

I do however wish to congratulate the neo-con warmongers of the Guardian newspaper for verbal dexterity. They have come up with a new formulation to replace the hackneyed “Of a type developed by Russia”, to point the finger for a substance that could have been made by dozens of state or non state parties. The Guardian today came up with “Russian-created novichok”. This cleverly employs a word that can encompass “developed” while also appearing to say “made”. It also again makes out that novichok is a specific substance rather than a very broad class of substances. The Guardian’s Steven Morris, by this brilliant attempt deliberately to mislead his readers, runs away with this week’s award for lying neo-con media whore of the week. His achievement is particularly good as the rest of his report is largely a simple copy and paste from the Press Association.

I most certainly hope that the couple in Salisbury hospital recover from whatever is afflicting them. The media is, by making this the lead story on all broadcast news after last night’s football, inviting us to make the connection to the Skripals. In which case I assume the couple were perfectly well for five hours after contact, able to be very active and even to eat and drink heavily, before being mysteriously instantly disabled at the same time despite different ages, sexes, weights, and metabolisms and random uncontrolled dosages.

Replicating that would be quite a feat.


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364 thoughts on “Wheel Out the Skripal Story Again

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  • Bob

    If it wasn’t for Freya Church, an eyewitness of the couple on the bench, saying the people in this video were “100% Definitely” the people she saw on the bench you might assume the pair in the video were prime suspects. The red bag witnessed at the scene is the clue.

    http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/journalnewsindex/16067205.CCTV_taken_minutes_before_police_were_called_to_reports_of_suspected__poisoning_of_Russian_spy_/

    But the official narrative is this pair were not the Skripals so we have to consider two things 1) What actually happened to the Skripals? And why no further police interest in this pair?

    Only two eyewitness reports have been made public of the physical characteristics of the female on the bench 1) Freya Church “100% Definitely” the same couple. And 2) Olly Field who described the woman as a “blonde bird”. No witness described the female on the bench as having reddish brown hair.

    The Russian speaking female witnessed in Zizzis (police have said this was Yulia) was described by a witness as having Reddish Brown hair. Yulia was caught on CCTV in a Moscow airport the day before she can clearly be seen as having reddish brown hair.

    It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out that the couple on the bench were not the Skripals.

    And the police know this.

    Why else would they only show interest in the CCTV capture above from the dozens of other individuals caught by the Snap Fitness camera (and Jenny’s Restaurant camera next door)?

    Because no one else was of interest, no one that could have been the Skripals and no one that could have poisoned them.

    Yet 4 months on in this fast moving probe the police pretend to be looking for suspects and still come up with ludicrous fantasy theories.

    Don’t get me wrong I feel a bit sorry for these dimwits trying to sell this horses bottom of a conspiracy but they don’t have to, they could say no I’m not playing this stupid game any more and resign but they don’t and the police become more ridiculous each day.

    So to recap

    The couple on the bench were not the Skripals

    The couple on the bench were not poisoned by a Novichok Nerve Agent

    The Skripals were in Zizzis c 3:30pm (Sergei in an emotional state) but didn’t make it as far as the bench.

  • Bu axmoqlik

    There’s nothing more lazy in journalism than speculating over those who speculate. Keep it up!

    • MightyDrunken

      I’m very very lazy, responding to a comment, on a story that’s speculating on those speculating.

  • Bob

    “different ages, sexes, weights, and metabolisms.”

    And Dose

    Only one hand used to close the door, re-entry a possibility but at reduced dose.

    • Pyotr Grozny

      The point I added off-topic on another thread belongs here. I subscribe to FCO travel advice updates on Russia as they are such obvious attempts to deter people from coming to Russia. Last Friday they issued a warning about the possiblity of demonstrations in Russian cities over the weekend against rises in the pension age. It seemed designed only to deter anyone who might be thinking of coming here. The small support for England last night was the result of their campaign. (Sorry Craig if you were rooting for Columbia!) BTW the Amesbury poisoning happened last Saturday but didn’t get a mention until last night.

      • Agent Green

        Yes the levels of blatant Russophobia have been disgusting for some time now.

        • Pyotr Grozny

          Did anyone mention yesterday morning’s exclusive in the Sun that the British authorities have identified teo suspects in the Skripal case who are currently in Moscow under the personal protection of Putin? I emailed my MP about this even before the Amesbury story broke. I have the impression my MP understands perfectly what is going of as I have never had.a reply backing the government line. BTW Daily Mail readers comments, which have been moderated and may or may not come from St Petersburg, are very sceptical about this Amesbury story

          • Jo

            Was not there an investigation into a person quickly comingn to uk delivering the forgotten wheatgerm or something then quickly returning to Russia? And a mysterious investigation of a plane at Heathrow never explained which upset the Russians…..

  • J. Bogoeva

    This has to do with the coming 16 July summit in Helsinki.
    If you look at the news today it is clear that those who oppose it are on the offensive. Take a look, for example, at todays Guardian telling us that the meeting in Helsinki will be bad for “the rest of us”. It’s all pretty comical, even if really serious.

    • Antonyl

      Best bet considering the timing. Why wait 4 months after Salisbury?
      Would underscore the CIA-MI6-Skripal-Miller-Steele —> Trump link.
      Better motive than mucking up the soccer World cup in Russia, specially now that the England team is going places.

    • Agent Green

      Russia and the US meeting to try to prevent nuclear war bad for ‘the rest of us’?

      • phil badiz

        Trump is going to try to settle the price the US is supposed to pay so no one ever sees his golden shower tape.
        Unless you have real intel that Prez Donny dipshit is planning to start one, “resolution” of nuclear war threat is the oldest, fakest bs aorund. While there are people in power with brains, there will never be a nuclear war, because no one can win… except perhaps the cockroaches.

  • Merkin Scot

    Three wheels on my wagon and two of them are Skripal and Broon. . . . . . .
    .
    Happy days.

  • Nick

    Was wondering if you would mention the OCPW’s recently expanded remit. Otiose? Perhaps for now, but in the future?

  • Vivian O'Blivion

    I have a vague recollection that the anthrax campaign in America in 2001 was traced back to a government lab. Also, as far as I know the culprit / culprits were never definitively identified. I would read up on the case but there is so much tinfoil hat contaminated material out there. Any pointers to reliable narrative?
    Speaking of anthrax, there is a recurring issue with consignments of heroine being contaminated with it. A fairly big “outbreak” in the south side of Glasgow a few years back.

    • Bob

      Dr Steven Hatfill had the job of making some Mobile WMD Labs for “training purposes”, the idea was that if a suspected Mobile Lab was found in Iraq inspectors would know how the Americans would design them.

      Anyway it all went tits (as in the Skripal case) so Hatfill had to be silenced, he was framed for the Anthrax Letters but that went tits as well (again as in the Skripal case)

      Where do they get these Good Ideas people from?

      https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/02/us/after-war-biological-warfare-subject-anthrax-inquiry-tied-anti-germ-training.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/02/us/after-war-biological-warfare-subject-anthrax-inquiry-tied-anti-germ-training.html

        • John

          I listened to a podcast with Graeme MacQueen which was very good – very convincing. He’s written a book about Amerithrax (which i haven’t yet read). Search google for ‘Graeme MacQueen Anthrax Podcast’.

          • Vivian O'Blivion

            John. Thanks for the pointer. I guess this stuff didn’t get all that much attention with what was happening at the time. Suspect one gets substantial financial settlement from the government. Suspect two commits suicide. The letters written by a child. Weird, dark stuff.

        • John

          ‘The Unresolved Podcast’ recently did a podcast on it too. Called ‘Amerithrax’.

      • Vivian O'Blivion

        The Congressman representing New Jersey where the anthrax letters were believed to have been posted said of the FBI investigation:
        “The FBI did a poor job of collecting evidence and then inappropriately focused on one individual as a suspect for too long, developing an erroneous theory of the case that has led to this very expensive end.”
        Sounds kind of familiar, har de fecking har.
        Some of this stuff is quite amusing. The covert FBI surveillance team following Hatfill ran over his foot with their surveillance car.

    • Mathias Alexander

      The tinfoil hat contaminated material might be coming from the people who dont want you to read up on it.

  • Yaggi Boom

    Hahaha, great piece of real journalism, just like it used to be, questioning the official narrative when it doesn’t make any sense at all.

    I still want to know how the poison the Skripals were exposed to was delivered? If it was ‘smeared on the door handle’ then how on earth was this terribly toxic substance handled by the perpetrators so that they didn’t become poisoned themselves. After all the official view is anything and everything near the site in Salisbury was contaminated, wrapped in plastic and removed. Anyone with a simple logical view of the situation ‘should’ question what we have been told, it appears most people have not bothered, just believed the propaganda issued by the Ministry of Truth, aka the BBC and their agents the mainstream media.

    • Bu axmoqlik

      The perpetrator wore gloves? LOL
      The most important point is nobody died, so why should the public care?

  • Adrian Kent

    In case you’ve not seen it, this 6-part discussion of the Skripal case is well worth a read – the conclusions are certainly more believable than the Government’s laughable line:

    http://www.theblogmire.com/joining-some-dots-on-the-skripal-case-part-1-an-official-story-that-doesnt-hold-water/

    As for the OPCW, their attrociously biased performance in Syria clearly demonstrates how currupted an institution it is. They have simply jetisoned any notion of a reliable chain-of-custody to support all sorts of silly Assad did it narratives.

  • Antonyl

    Boris Johnson’s great “coup” of obtaining a majority vote at the OPCW to expand its powers to place blame for chemical attacks
    Those OPCW chemists will not be happy to have to transmute to bullet proof detectives working in war zones with various politicians wanting particular results before reaching their lab.

    Who actually still has big stocks of Chemical weapons? Russia, Syria? No…..Uncle Sam! https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Chemical-Weapons-Frequently-Asked-Questions#V

    This has a long history; see Seymour Hersh first book (1968): “Chemical and biological warfare, America’s hidden arsenal” https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5608361M/Chemical_and_biological_warfare

  • The King Of Prussia

    We seem to have a concatenation of news stories here. Health worker arrested over multiple deaths at a maternity unit, and two instances of poisoning near a chemical weapons establishment. Both scream “rogue employee” to me.

    • Vivian O'Blivion

      I’d put money on it but the time constraints imposed by my other vices doesn’t leave room for gambling.
      What is an absolute certainty is that no matter what emerges in the coming days, if the Skripal case does turn out to be a Portondown inside job, it will NEVER be reported as such by the MSM.

    • Barbara Brown

      Absolutely king of Prussia. Just a coincidence two turned up at the same time. The nurse has self evidently escaped notice for sometime. As did Shipman. There are some very strange people out there and they are not all in Broadmoor. I would be looking at Porton Down employees but not the “strange” individuals. Most psychopaths appear very inconspicuous. They will be enjoying their hour. Such power.

      • Vivian O'Blivion

        The introverted, little scientist with an ego the size of a continent and a chip on their shoulder to match. “So much smarter and than the others and no one appreciates me.” Does the dirty deed in March and gets away with it. So much vicarious satisfaction at all the attention focused on their surroundings, but now the media have moved onto other matters. Time for a repeat performance to show the world how clever they are. Once they have a taste for the vicarious “fame” they can’t help but keep on.

    • porkpie

      This is exactly what I’ve been thinking. Two ‘attacks’ within miles of Porton Down? Maybe the Skripils were attacked randomly, and the fact he was ex-spy was jumped on by establishment? A bit more boring than all the conspiracy theories, granted, but coud you image if it was just some nutjob who then admitted it. Get out of that one, Maybot!

  • Michael McNulty

    It may be these lies were created in the belief England wouldn’t get far in the World Cup and so their supporters were expected home soon, when they would express opinions about Russia and Russians which are far different from the official fear porn. If that’s the case they have counter-attacked too early and this BS may burn itself out before England come home, just ever-so-possibly after winning the tournament.

    • N_

      They wouldn’t “counter-attack” and then just watch for what happens.

      In other news, the Electoral Commission says the Leave side cheated in the referendum. When the result of a vote is found to have been compromised by cheating, there is a rerun if possible. That’s standard almost everywhere. The government “should” say “sure”, because a) they love the “rule of law”, and b) they can replace “Dave’s deal” with “Theresa’s er…er…is it a deal or no deal? Whatever”, on which they’ve worked so hard. Right? Right?

    • Merkin Scot

      My thoughts exactly, Michael. Funny how often we have been proved right in these things.

  • Stonky

    “Butcher Assad” is making serious inroads into the assorted freedom-loving progressives and democrats in Deraa. I see the “barrel bombs” were being wheeled back into service last week. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it isn’t time for another chemical weapons attack on hospitals stuffed with women and children.

  • N_

    The couple were at a fun day at Amesbury Baptist church on Sunday. Church secretary Roy Collins says “there was nothing going on that was nefarious”. So that’s that, then.

    “Amesbury Baptist Church began when four couples (two civilian and two military) started meeting as a home group in Amesbury in January 1991 having had a vision of founding a church in the area.” (Source.) (Emphasis added.)

    • truthwillout

      Not at all. The incident was supposed to have happened on Saturday. If they were at church on Sunday it doesn’t add up at all – why weren’t they in hospital?

        • N_

          The church secretary Roy Collins says around 200 people attended the event but “nobody else has suffered any ill effects”. (How could he know?) He describes the two as “not church members or regulars”.

    • Agent Green

      Were any Russians at this ‘fun day’?

      Perhaps carrying a jar of liquid or wearing gloves?

  • Ross

    I suppose one consequence of the deep state getting away with the Novichok false flag was the inevitability that the ruse would be used again. I imagine the media will be even more supine this time around.

  • Robert W

    The Guardian “Russia!!!!!” Amesbury story contained a much less useful map than yours, Craig. The Guardian did not name the Porton Down area in the middle of their map but they did BOLDLY feature MUGGLE(ton) Rd. The Guardian’s bold emphasis on muggles reminds me that a similar barbarous discourse raged near the Alamogordo nuclear weapons test facility on 30 December 2001. Religious fanatics loyal to the weapons facility conducted a public book burning of Harry Potter books and Shakespeare in the town, terrorizing children who were learning to read about muggles, and sparking the besieged public librarian to write to the US library journal. Bring it on, Goebbels 🙂 Secondly, I too am sorry for the couple’s suffering however caused.

    • Robert W

      A correction: the plight of the besieged public librarian was WRITTEN ABOUT in a report in the ‘American Libraries’ journal February 2002 by its senior editor. Alamogordo parents with children rallied behind their librarian and donated resources to counter the book-burning religious fanatics in this nuclear weapons testing town.

  • Mistress Pliddy

    Of course, it is quite plausible that this latest “novichoc” story has been drummed up by one or many of Craig Murray’s recently signed-up “recurring” subscribers, who are fed up with Murray’s failure to uphold his side of the “recurring payment” bargain, namely “recurring blogging”, as a dutiful exchange for recurring subscriptions. That, is, drummed up, simply to stimulate some sort of output from Murray.

  • Jack

    How many exile russians are living in this very area?! In case it is russian victims again that is…

  • Mist001

    Having followed the Skripal case on this blog and elsewhere, the only plausible conclusion that I can come to is that it’s some kind of espionage/black ops sting in which the Skripals self administered whatever it was themselves. Maybe they even made it themselves at home. I suspect that the UK government was primed with false information regarding a possible chemical incident which they believed to be true. The Skripals were a part of this so self administered their substance and the UK government jumped straight into a trap by screaming Russia Novichok attack. They bought into it so much that it was impossible for them to retract any of their initial statements, so they’ve had to run with it and now they’re hoping that the whole affair dies down and is quietly forgotten about.

    Interestingly, this embarrassment also affects the many states of the EU who were so quick to buy into the UK government line, so maybe the EU was the ultimate target with this whole affair. I’m thinking of a ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf’ scenario developing.

    Doubly interesting too is the fact that President Trump, an supposed ally of the UK, is now in the process of building bridges with Russia and that’s leaving the UK and the EU pretty isolated on the world stage.

    The whole affair in my opinion is a very clever set up of which the Skripals are a major part due to my belief that they started this whole thing rolling by self administering the substance, whatever it was, themselves.

    • Dan

      “They took away our clothes and things / And pumped us full of strange drugs”

  • N_

    Police have cordoned off Boots in Amebury. On Saturday, some residents had their gas and electricity turned off.

    No Cobra meeting yet, but “a government spokesman said ‘ministers are being kept up to date.'”

  • TheWomanOnTheBenchWasBlondAndTheSameDayYuliaSkripalWasReddishBrown

    Yes, The Guardian is such a good paper. The Telegraph is not bad either. Look at this excerpt from the Wikipedia article “Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal” :

    In 2010, speaking of traitors, the Russian president Vladimir Putin stated : “It was the result of treason. It always ends badly for traitors: as a rule, their end comes from drink or drugs, lying in a ditch. And for what?”

    On another occasion, on 16th December 2010, Putin returned to the case of the traitors. According to a report given at the time by The Telegraph, Putin said in this speech that the Russian secret services didn’t kill the traitors and he added : “As for the traitors, they will croak all by themselves.”

    On 7 March 2018, the same Telegraph publishes an article entitled “Traitors will kick the bucket’: Vladimir Putin swore revenge on poisoned Russian spy Sergei Skripal”. One reads in this article : “In a 2010 interview, Vladimir Putin [stated] that Russian double agents would pay for their ‘betrayal’ (…) Vladimir Putin vowed to kill the Russian double agent who was poisoned on British soil.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal#Connection_made_by_the_press_with_statements_of_Vladimir_Putin_about_traitors

  • Sharp Ears

    As dear Harold Pinter said when accepting his Nobel Prize –

    ‘It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter.’

    Indeed it never happened except it does matter. We are being lied to over and over again by these Tories.

    • Xavi

      And by the mostly neocon “opposition” and warmongering liberal media. They are the ones who give credibility to blatant Tory lies. As they did over what caused the deficit and who should be forced to pay it down.

    • Charles Bostock

      Wow, did Pinter say that?

      Perhaps ot was that which inspired David Sattler to title one of his books as “It was all a long time ago and it never happened”.

      The book – which I recommend to all Putin fans – is about how the Russia authorities today are pretty uninterested about establishing the historical truth about the very dark events in Soviet history including of course the Stalinist terror and seem, increasingly, to discourage deeper research into awareness of what happened. Very unlike what the German authorities do re. the crimes of the Nazi terro, in fact..

      • Herbie

        “about how the Russia authorities today are pretty uninterested about establishing the historical truth about the very dark events in Soviet history including of course the Stalinist terror and seem, increasingly, to discourage deeper research into awareness of what happened. Very unlike what the German authorities do re. the crimes of the Nazi terror, in fact..”

        Do you think maybe Abe Foxman asked them not to rake too much into the past.

        As he asked Ukrainian president Yushenko over the Holodomor.

          • Herbie

            Well, he has form in this area.

            Occam’s razor and all that.

            He’d be the first one i’d want to interview on the matter.

  • Adrian

    SwindonFire RDS @SwindonFireRDS tweeted at 7:48AM – 1 July 2018:

    “77 mile round trip for our Operational Support Unit last night to Amesbury. Thankfully the incident wasn’t serious and our decontamination shower wasn’t required.”

    The tweet included two photographs and additional text description as to the non-serious nature of this incident “thought to have been a drug-related medical episode.

    This morning, right after Lee Hannon @HannonTV flagged the tweet @ https://twitter.com/SwindonFireRDS/status/1013434161334505473 and retweeted it – Swindon Fire RDS deleted their tweet. It’s been screencapped – thankfully.

    • Jo

      Well spotted! Craig Murray Intellience Service CMIT in operation…..lets all become CMITten citizens…
      .

  • bj

    Just getting into this “news”.

    Ridiculous is the first that comes up.
    The fact that newspapers make it drown out the football match is telling.

    People in the vicinity of Salisbury hospital should stake out the entries and exits and meticulously Gopro-record anything that happens,
    at least record license plates and such. Something lke “Hospital spotting” springs to mind.

  • Agent Green

    Of course this is nonsense.

    The British Government will be taking the piss if they think they can pull the Skripal farce again.

  • bj

    What is most remarkable and disgusting is this:

    This is an (other) act of war of the UK government against its own citizens on its own soil, in the sense that it deprives them of the enjoyment of a national sporting event.

  • Will Rowan

    It’s ketamin, apparently.

    And in a perhaps separate event, Elizabeth gardens, a large park in central Salisbury was taped off and policed this morning

    • MightyDrunken

      This is worrying news, ketamine a dissociative hallucinogen of a type developed by America. Trump has a lot to answer for!

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