I was caught in a twitterstorm of hatred yesterday, much of it led by mainstream media journalists like David Aaronovitch and Dan Hodges, for daring to suggest that the basic elements of Boshirov and Petrov’s story do in fact stack up. What became very plain quite quickly was that none of these people had any grasp of the detail of the suspects’ full twenty minute interview, but had just seen the short clips or quotes as presented by British corporate and state media.
As I explained in my last post, what first gave me some sympathy for the Russians’ story and drew me to look at it closer, was the raft of social media claims that there was no snow in Salisbury that weekend and Stonehenge had not been closed. In fact, Stonehenge was indeed closed on 3 March by heavy snow, as confirmed by English Heritage. So the story that they came to Salisbury on 3 March but could not go to Stonehenge because of heavy snow did stand up, contrary to almost the entire twittersphere.
Once there was some pushback of truth about this on social media, people started triumphantly posting the CCTV images from 4 March to prove that there was no snow lying in Central Salisbury on 4 March. But nobody ever said there was snow on 4 March – in fact Borisov and Petrov specifically stated that they learnt there was a thaw so they went back. However when they got there, they encountered heavy sleet and got drenched through. That accords precisely with the photographic evidence in which they are plainly drenched through.
Another extraordinary meme that causes hilarity on twitter is that Russians might be deterred by snow or cold weather.
Well, Russians are human beings just like us. They cope with cold weather at home because they have the right clothes. Boshirov and Petrov refer continually in the interview to cold, wet feet and again this is borne out by the photographic evidence – they were wearing sneakers unsuitable to the freak weather conditions that were prevalent in Salisbury on 3 and 4 March. They are indeed soaked through in the pictures, just as they said in the interview.
Russians are no more immune to cold and wet than you are.
Twitter is replete with claims that they were strange tourists, to be visiting a housing estate. No evidence has been produced anywhere that shows them on any housing estate. They were seen on CCTV camera walking up the A36 by the Shell station, some 400 yards from the Skripals’ house, which would require three turnings to get to that – turnings nobody saw them take (and they were on the wrong side of the road for the first turning, even though it would be very close). No evidence has been mentioned which puts them at the Skripals’ House.
Finally, it is everywhere asserted that it is very strange that Russians would take a weekend break holiday, and that if they did they could not possibly be interested in architecture or history. This is a simple expression of anti-Russian racism. Plainly before their interview – about which they were understandably nervous – they prepared what they were going to say, including checking up on what it was they expected to see in Salisbury because they realised they would very obviously be asked why they went. Because their answer was prepared does not make it untrue.
That literally people thousands of people have taken to twitter to mock that it is hilariously improbable that tourists might want to visit Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge, is a plain example of the irrationality that can overtake people when gripped by mob hatred.
I am astonished by the hatred that has been unleashed. The story of Gerry Conlon might, you would hope, give us pause as to presuming the guilt of somebody who just happened to be of the “enemy” nationality, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Despite the mocking mob, there is nothing inherently improbable in the tale told by the two men. What matters is whether they can be connected to the novichok, and here the safety of the identification of the microscopic traces of novichok allegedly found in their hotel bedroom is key. I am no scientist, but I have been told by someone who is, that if the particle(s) were as the police state so small as to be harmless to humans, they would be too small for mass spectrometry analysis and almost certainly could not be firmly identified other than as an organophosphate. Perhaps someone qualified might care to comment.
The hotel room novichok is the key question in this case.
Were I Vladimir Putin, I would persuade Boshirov and Petrov voluntarily to come to the UK and stand trial, on condition that it was a genuinely fair trial before a jury in which the entire proceedings, and all of the evidence, was open and public, and the Skripals and Pablo Miller might be called as witnesses and cross-examined. I have no doubt that the British government’s desire for justice would suddenly move into rapid retreat if their bluff was called in this way.
As for me, when I see a howling mob rushing to judgement and making at least some claims which are utterly unfounded, and when I see that mob fueled and egged on by information from the security services propagated by exactly the same mainstream media journalists who propagandised the lies about Iraqi WMD, I see it as my job to stand in the way of the mob and to ask cool questions. If that makes them hate me, then I must be having some impact.
So I ask this question again – and nobody so far has attempted to give me an answer. At what time did the Skripals touch their doorknob? Boshirov and Petrov arrived in Salisbury at 11.48 and could not have painted the doorknob before noon. The Skripals had left their house at 09.15, with their mobile phones switched off so they could not be geo-located. Their car was caught on CCTV on three cameras heading out of Salisbury to the North East. At 13.15 it was again caught on camera heading back in to the town centre from the North West.
How had the Skripals managed to get back to their home, and touch the door handle, in the hour between noon and 1pm, without being caught on any of the CCTV cameras that caught them going out and caught the Russian visitors so extensively? After this remarkably invisible journey, what time did they touch the door handle?
I am not going to begin to accept the guilt of Boshirov and Petrov until somebody answers that question. Dan Hodges? David Aaronovitch? Theresa May? Anybody?
Thanks Craig.
This whole thing is a complete load of bollocks.
From start to finish.
Lack of evidence, even the security services, they do not have any definitive proof.
If the English CPs tried to bring a case with this fabricated sham.
We would know they are as corrupt as their state bosses.
Regards
version – what if novichok was diluted to relatively safe concentrations(to leave victims alive) and was used in false flag op, to denote usage of military grade CW in Britain by Russia?
How do you dilute a compound designed to work on the Central Nervous System ? This is how organophosphate nerve agents function – inhibiting the enzyme acetylcholinesterase in the cholinergic nerve system. How is it you propose to stop it affecting the Nervous System ?
just take one lethal dose of novichok and add 1 liter of water. take a tea spoon of this mixture and you ‘ll have what i said.
Нет, Алекс, там все сложнее, мне кажется
В.М.: Аум Синрикё, конечно, не в домашних условиях это делали, у них было несколько химиков и инженеров, но у них не было опыта работы. Они, конечно, хорошие химики были, но опыта с зарином у них никакого не было – зеро. Поэтому они сделали, конечно, продукт, максимум с 7-процентным содержанием, а боевой зарин – это 95%. Но для массового убийства людей этого достаточно – даже 7%. Порядка двухсот с чем-то человек все-таки убили (В результате двух зариновых атак Аум Синрикё погибли 20 человек – Би-би-си).(Пострадало реально много.)
Понимаете, нельзя путать боевое отравляющее вещество с просто отравляющим веществом. Потому что к боевому отравляющему веществу предъявляются требования по эффективности. А здесь против незащищенного человека даже однопроцентный раствор может быть полностью летальным.
https://www.bbc.com/russian/features-43429973
does it mean, that Scripals were at home, when GRU sprayed their door knob(under high risk to me seen)?
The main problem with this ongoing complete and utter load of nonsense, apart from it seriously damaging the reputation of The UK Government, to levels not previously achieved, is that it is also causing mass psychological damage and cognitive dissonance to vast numbers of people who actually take this nonsense seriously.
As regards Dan Hodges, I had numerous exchanges with him several years ago, when he was working for the Daily Telegraph. I have enormous respect for his mother. Whilst Dan is highly intelligent, and writes exceedingly well, he at some point in his life, has gone through some process, that has affected a relatively small number or people who unfortunately have achieved significant positions of influence and political power. Whatever this process was, and it may have been initiated, by studying in detail the work of Leon Trotsky, it has turned Dan Hodges and others into raving Neocons. I seriously doubt if there is any cure for this condition, though there is a chance that electroconvulsive therapy may work on some individuals.
Tony
Neo-Cons are simply Re-Wired Trotskyites with reversed polarity. It is the litmus test – ALL of them in the US are from the Jewish Trotskyite Fringe – and have been re-wired
I think, from now on, everyone from wherever should reconsider any weekend or 4 day away days to London
To visit the cess pit, museums, bridges cathedrals, lidls, aldi
.
Lol??
You chose the right term again, Craig: “Lynch Mob Mentality”. A large part of public wants these two to be murderers and has either not seen their full account, or not accepted the obvious messages in it. These two men are not “highly trained GRU” officers who have applied Novichock on the Skripal’s door (and walked away before checking the result). They are two frightened men who have been exposed in public for things that they wanted to keep private. Things the are not acceptable to their relatives. They also have a dogdy business which they are hoping to keep, but which has now gone. They can’t tell us why they visited London or Salisbury, as they will feel more ashamed. Would the GRU abandon two such important officers by throwing them out to the media like that? No, they don’t care about these two. But the mob is now after them and needs no details.
“They can’t tell us why they visited London or Salisbury”
Or how they squeezed a detour to Amesbury into their busy schedule.
The official story goes is that the Skripals left the house at 9:15 never to come back. And the 4 M cannot be even bothered to try and reconcile all the inconsistencies in their account of the events. I guess it is hard to keep track of all the lies.
“In fact, the 13:15 time you give is inaccurate. The Devizes Road sitting was at 13:30. All you’ve proven is that you keep slicing 15 minutes slices off of accurate timings”
“Keep slicing”? Once only by my anti-semitic anti-arithmetic.
why people are still guessing – returned scripals at home in between 9.15 and 13.30?
i know quite unusual way(for british police) to make it clear.
just ask scripals where they were at this time! Bingo!
You would wonder why nobody has thought of that wouldn’t you, but, with respect, I think you are missing the point.
In my view the Russian state has been designated by the British government as the Enemy.
The Russians could perhaps provide what many would feel is conclusive proof that they were not involved and the British would still say they were fabricating evidence.
The British are not interested in the truth. They are only interested in making Russia out to be the bad guy.
“In my view the Russian state has been designated by the British government as the Enemy.
The Russians could perhaps provide what many would feel is conclusive proof that they were not involved and the British would still say they were fabricating evidence.
The British are not interested in the truth. They are only interested in making Russia out to be the bad guy.”
That’s right: John Pilger has said for some years that the US, backed by the UK, have a definite agenda to ramp up the hostility towards Russia. Putin’s Russia may not be anywhere near perfect but the US/UK is the real “axis of evil” and it’s about time people woke up to the fact. I mean how would the US and UK like it if the Russians had military bases surrounding our shores?
O.K., so even if the Russians are using cyberwar techniques, only an idiot would think that the West aren’t up to the same game.
Why settle for a Two Minute Hate when you can get it continuously day in day out on the BBC and most of the Mainstream Press ?
i studied scripals house and places around in google maps. it’s quite risky place to visit and not be noticed. by neighbors, scripals themself or somebody else. at least, after spraying they must run away asap, and better – leave this place using a car.
Skripal chose a home at the far end of a long cul-de-sac. That was not an accident. From the front of his house, he had a clear view of anyone approaching his home. It has been suggested that he had security cameras installed; I’d be amazed if that were not the case. There’s footage of anyone approaching his home either down the road or across his back garden.
that’s what i tried to say. former gru officer could not forget about security cams around his house. at least.
plus a bit of landmines…
No hitmen would show their faces so blatently. If you do a hit you use a car. Do it at night not show your face to every camera in Salisbury. If ever you wanted to set up a couple of people for a crime……this is the way to do it. I cant figure it out but if they are hit men…they are the worst. Russia know what they are doing…….BUT I DOUBT MI5 and MI6 do.
my posts somehow jump from a place of reply to just a regular comment.
am repeating answer, which jumps to regular.
—
i studied scripals house and places around in google maps. it’s quite risky place to visit and not be noticed. by neighbors, scripals themself or somebody else. at least, after spraying they must run away asap, and better – leave this place using a car.
wtf… message again became regular instead of being reply…
need help and protection!
I am spending 3 hours a day checking all the blogs….and beginning to feel a bit kinda “novichocked”…..you have only recently started to blog….take it easy…be careful!
I think that’s because the post to which you were replying got deleted before you hit the button. The poisonous poster in question is no more. A nation mourns.
thank you MJ. You saved my brains.
Is it the message deleted by Mod or user can delete the message by himself(i dislike garbage and want to delete some my messages)?
Unfortunately you can’t delete (or even edit) your own posts. They’re there for eternity I’m afraid. A salutory lesson.
thank you MJ.
I wondered! If it’s who I presume it was, I wondered why he’d suddenly gone very quiet! All I can say is thank goodness, not too soon.
Hi Craig,
Just now, I discovered an online article in the Tages Anzeiger (Swiss newspaper), abt those two Russian chaps, who got themselves arrested in the Netherlands – and the connection there seems to be to the Swiss “Labor Spiez”.
https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/schweiz/standard/russische-spione-auf-dem-weg-ins-berner-oberland-verhaftet/story/27257777
In German, the whole thing, but for those who are interested, http://www.translate.google.com might do the trick.
was already mentioned miltiple times.
Well. It’s taken all this time for the BBC to get on it.
Skripal case: Russian ‘spies’ targeted Swiss chemical weapons lab
20 minutes ago
Two Russian men were arrested earlier this year on suspicion of spying on a Swiss laboratory investigating the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, a newspaper investigation has claimed.
Swiss publication Tages Anzeiger and Dutch paper NRC said they were arrested in the Netherlands earlier this year.
The Swiss lab analysed samples from the poisoning of the former Russian double agent in the UK.
It has also dealt with suspected chemical weapons from the war in Syria.
The two men were expelled from The Netherlands shortly after their arrest, which had not been reported until now.
A spokeswoman for Swiss intelligence told the BBC that the agency had been actively involved in “the case of the Russian spies”, without mentioning the laboratory at Spiez, near Bern.
But Tages Anzeiger said the Swiss intelligence agency had confirmed the findings of its joint investigation with NRC.
The report says the two men had equipment that could have been used to break into the laboratory’s computer systems, and also alleged that they worked for Russian intelligence.’
/..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45522614
Nice dosage of ‘news’. Fine controlled by the Atlantic Council.
The NRC is one of the NATO co-opted, truth hiding MSM in the Netherlands.
… chances are that most other people know about this already anyway…
Under arcane OPCW rules, the state requesting the analysis reserves the right to withhold the lab analysis from certain other treaty signatories. In fact, the UK did exactly this. It is not clear that Russia ever received more than a perfunctory executive summary.
The top admin at Spiez Labor, now departed, made a stupid tweet on their authorized twitter site. That got the whole BZ conspiracy theory started. BZ was never reported by anyone but rather a harmless precursor to it 3QN that is routinely used by OPCW as a control on their outside labs. BZ produces the exact opposite symptoms of OP poisoning as reported by eyewitnesses.
We are regularly trolled here by BZ dead-enders who haven’t followed the story closely and appear complete chemical and biomedical illiterates.
Lavrov misunderstood the Spiez tweet and became highly suspicious, rightly so. Hackers may have been ordered — or merely seen an opportunity for a big sale — to gain access to the full Salisbury report and perhaps others related to Syria false flags.
Spiez Labor never determined the chemical structure of initial OP samples provided to them. They explicitly deferred to Porton Down expertise in structural matters.
The arcane OPCW rules have since gotten worse, by UK insistence. OPCW is now supposed to determine the guilty party though they have no staff, funding, or experience in such matters. On the perfume bottle contents, which are enough for structural analysis, nothing has been heard about the ~2% impurities. These were once discussed as specific signatures for manufacture (route of synthesis). OPCW-designated labs do not post data or reports and normally are not identified.
I’m a “complete chemical and biomedical illiterate'” and I reserve the right to “troll” you, Mr Smythe, until you can point me at an online authority explaining this “harmless precursor to it 3QN that is routinely used by OPCW as a control on their outside labs.”
Tom,
T oexpand on your first paragraph, it’s the ‘commissioning’ country who has complete control over the OPCW remit, redacting the report and the distribution of said report and summary version. Everyone may recall how inexplicably and suspiciously reluctant the UK Govt was to involve the OPCW at all in the beginning. My belief is that they changed their minds pretty quickly following legal advice that if the Russians got in first (which they were entitled to do as Russian nationals were involved) they could invite the OPCW to act and control of the OPCW’s input etc would fall to them.
The real problem is the door handle theory is its inconsistency with the observed simultaneity of severe symptom onset 4 hours later from seemingly very similar exposures in individuals of very different weight and health status.
It is not conceptually clear how both could have gotten similar skin dosages off a single door handle, going in and out our house a kazillion times with my spouse, only one of us would ever touch the outer handle.
Prior to the door handle being secured, numerous published photos show police going in and out of Skripal’s house without even cotton gloves. No one was affected. Nochain of custody exists for the first few days. It is near impossible to determine whether contamination was accidentally or deliberately introduced by police or MI6.
The nature and level of contamination has never been disclosed: gel? liquid? solubility to rain? volatility? lots or just trace amounts (micrograms)? It has not proven possible to relate the door handle chemical (and associated impurities) to the perfume bottle contents (which was far easier to study). They may or may not be from the same batch. They may or may not relate to the novichok vials Leonid Rink sold to organized crime for the banker assassination.
There is no evidence fo date for the existence of a second perfume bottle. There is no evidence fo date that the first perfume bottle (dumpster) was used in the Skripal attack. There is no chemical evidence of any kind linking the first perfume bottle or the attack agent to the alleged spill (nanograms) agent in the hotel room
A common take: the UK dug itself into a hole with both the door handle and the duo, fears losing face and propaganda momentum if they were to back down now.
“There is no evidence to date for the existence of a second perfume bottle.”
But there is that ‘whoopsy’ by the Express I quoted earlier to the effect that there were two bottles, one associated with each incident (Amesbury and Salisbury). Btw you perhaps didn’t catch my previous acknowledgement of your mentioning DS Bailey in that context. Your suggestion of his handling the very evidence at the time tied things up nicely.
Press errors to date: too many to list here. Some innocent, just confusion, copy-paste error, deadline pressure. Others malicious.
Just one perfume bottle so far. There are photos of the specific two skips in the Salisbury alley that Charlie brought the police to. He found the package in one of the skips and brought to his flat in Amesbury no more than a day or two before presenting it to Dawn.
Police seized the skips for testing but never reported further. The bottle had a leak-proof, vapor-proof screw-top or snap on cap plus a separate white pump mechanism that we have not been able to locate yet at ebay etc. Charlie spilled a bunch on his hand trying to assemble the pump onto the bottle but washed it off. Dawn sprayed both wrists.
No further word on whether the original cap was recovered. No further word on whether the cellophane wrapper was recovered. The outer cellophane is very high priority for forensics. Met police photos only show the assembled bottle + dispenser and the crumpled inner cardboard container.
Thanks for the synopsis, none of which I would question, but would point to the seizure and testing of those skips.
Reversing the order of your opening statements to paragraph 3 we get:
1. “The bottle had a leak-proof, vapor-proof screw-top or snap on cap plus a separate white pump mechanism”
2. “Police seized the skips for testing but never reported further”
Since it was Charlie Rowley who first opened the package back in Amesbury, 2 appears rather pointless in the context of 1 don’t you think.
It looked like an long spray actuator for spraying medication into an ear or throat for pharmaceutical use eg https://www.frapak.com/en/pharmaceutical-sprayers/
Of course, once used, the nozzle itself would be contaminated with liquid, that would then contaminate the box, plus the fingers of the person who unscrewed it (given Charlie said he was trying to assemble it, it must therefore have been disassembled). It’s not something you’re going to want to repack after use.
The door handle either didn’t work because Skripal was wearing gloves (due to the weather), or because the attackers went to the house after using the Novichok.
An interesting reversal of the story would be Skripal having cultivated a contact at Porton Down, then arranged for the contact to provide a sample of an agent they were working on (there are rumours that Russia was looking for non-lethal nerve agents to disable rather than kill), which was put in fake perfume packaging. The two Russians were couriers, due to meet Skripal on the Saturday, but he wasn’t there due to the snow and the need to get to Heathrow. They then came back on the Sunday, met with and received the package. However British Intelligence was alert to the plot. To turn the tables, the Novichok was used against the Skripals to implicate Russia. The couriers flee, dropping the bottle Skripal had given them unused and unopened, but manage to evade the watchers and get to Heathrow. Meanwhile the watchers who had committed the act, headed to Skripal’s house to try to get the fleeing couriers, leaving contamination on the doorhandle. At least this James Bond version would make sense…
Could you write that up as a screenplay? I think it would make an excellent episode of Spooks.
Never mind folks………this keeps Brexit off the news so you can be eventually BORED back into the EEC with apathy waiting for actions by Tory idiots.
EEC? Blimey, if it was still only the Common Market we would most likely have voted to remain.
That is hard to imagine since The Werner Plan for Monetary Union was dated 22 March 1971 and planned for a Common Currency by 1980. The Werner Plan pre-dates UK Accession to the EEC
I think it’s easy to imagine because by 2016 we’d already dodged the bullet of monetary union.
and yet the third largest shareholder in the ECB is United Kingdom………and I think you will find quite large Euro exposure on UK balance sheets
I notice the Sun ran a story, 6th Sept, about Boshirov having a Facebook account with only one friend.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7188679/ruslan-boshirov-novichok-salisbury-yulia-chopivskya/
A women he met in Prague in 2014. Maybe only opened the account to add her? He updated his profile picture at the time to a picture of The Church of Our Lady before Tyn… and her spires.
Maybe the guy really does like his spires!
I’m in two minds as to whether they were genuinely just taking a sight seeing trip, or if they were lured there under some premise of slightly dodgy dealings to do with their business. An offer they couldn’t ignore. Seems a bit fortunate that there were two fit mercenary looking types from Russia that happened to be in the area at the time. They should be offered immunity to reveal such info, but not in the UK, the case would go dark, secret courts, terrorism, D-Notices up the wazoo etc etc, never to be heard from again.
“Seems a bit fortunate that there were two fit mercenary looking types from Russia that happened to be in the area at the time”
A godsend. Some tory MP on the radio the other day really did say that in the CCTV footage they walked like thugs. What more proof do you need?
Who am I to question a Tory MP in his assessment of “thugs” ?
Be careful with that. Both names are fairly common in Russia and multiple hasty misidentifications have already occurred on a name or birthdate basis. The photos have to match but have nott until the two stepped forward. The pharma guy at Tomsk with the same name is ruled out, he is stocky with wrong patronymic. The GRU-associated guy with the SMERSH grandfather is ruled out, same name but again wrong patronymic and photo.
Russia names consist of a given name (imia), a patronymic (otchestvo), and surname (familiia). The middle name is the patronymic; derived from the father’s given name, ending with -ovic. Women’s patronymics end in -ovna or -evna.
I’m going to kick back and let native Russian speakers searching Russia language documents at Russian archival and social media sources chase down the background of these two. Once someone gets their foot in the door (home town, job colleague, school chum), the floodgates open on their online trail. Probably thousands of people looking as a cash award has been offered by a Russian newspaper. How hard can it be after the RT interview?
I’ve not really rated the Sun’s investigative journalism skills very highly, so I did wonder how they would have identified this to be the correct Boshirov. But then I think it much more likely that they, or whoever they copied the story from, were fed this info from the everso clever security services, who didn’t foresee the danger in leaking the evidence of Boshirov’s interest in Gothic Architecture, notably spires and clocks, both in his profile picture 4 years ago.
You put a very plausible thesis together regarding the poisoning of the Skripal’s which caught a lot of peoples attention because of its plausibility in the face of a very doubtful govt. meme surrounding the story.
However if indeed the govt. / msm meme was so implausible the current meme postulated by the Russians surrounding the reasons for the 2 being in Salisbury and the ‘coincidence’ of their being there at the time of the Skripal poisoning is equally implausible.
No one who is a capable of looking at this story objectively could be convinced that 2 Russians came to London for a couple of days stayed in a rough 2 star hotel in east London before making their way via public transport to Salisbury of all places on a Sunday with a view to visiting the cathedral while equally planning an unlikely visit to Stonehenge in the last gasps of winter which just happened to be shut but they didnt bother checking before they came. It makes no sense.
Something is / has gone on here but right now we are none the wiser and will be even less so if being encouraged to suspend belief sufficiently to except Mr Borishov’s and Petrov’s story.
I have no idea what they were doing in Salisbury and find the idea of them being assassins very unlikely but equally so their story of coming all the way to Salisbury for a weekend while staying more than 130 miles away. Doesn’t add up…
The point is that the Russians, whoever they are, don’t have to explain themselves. It is up the UK authorities to prove everything if they want to charge and convict the pair.
This isn’t a court of law.
Right now they have been charged in the court of public opinion.
If they are innocent they will want to clear their names. That they have postulated the reasons for visiting the UK that they did has only made their position worse. More so if they are innocent.
Their whole story for their visit and its internary is highly questionable. They would have been better saying nothing because no one will believe they came for a weekend visit to Salisbury while staying in Bow of all places. Doesnt add up.
@ PROFESSOR PLUM says: “… because no one will believe they came for a weekend visit to Salisbury while staying in Bow of all places. Doesnt add up.”
IN INTERVIEW PETROV says: “No, initially we planned to go to London and have some fun there.”
It helps to pay attention.
I’m Hungarian and lived for a little more than two years in the UK. Even before my UK stay, I had heard of the Salisbury cathedral. I also did a day trip to the area, driving from Reading to Stonehenge. My original plan was to visit Salisbury cathedral afterwards, but spent too much time at Stonehenge and decided to drive back straight to Reading. Your ‘arguments’ are parapet thin. Salisbury cathedral IS a tourist destination for non-Brits. Tourists often change their plans and improvise, that kind of freedom is the whole point of going on a trip, even a weekend one.
I also often went on vacation whereby I flew to a big city, major transportation hub and used it as a base camp to make day trips to smaller places. Makes perfect sense to me to stay in London for a weekend trip, go down to Salisbury, then get back to the London night life. People like you who try to find holes in their tourist planning just reek of desperation. I think the UK just made an embarrassing mistake by accusing these two guys but now your gov cannot back down. They know they can count on the unthinking patriotic crowd like yourself.
They could have booked their tickets months ago too….that info would be interesting…did not want to waste their flights….after all such a snow events as we did have was quite unusual…..
‘No one who is a capable of looking at this story objectively could be convinced that 2 Russians came to London for a couple of days stayed in a rough 2 star hotel in east London before making their way via public transport to Salisbury of all places on a Sunday with a view to visiting the cathedral while equally planning an unlikely visit to Stonehenge in the last gasps of winter which just happened to be shut but they didnt bother checking before they came. It makes no sense.’
What is so unbelievable about that? If they booked in advanced they would have had no way to know the weather. Stonehenge and Salisbury cathedral sounds like exactly like the two-birds-one-stone mentality of tourists planning a day trip.
What is truly frightening is to consider whether the police investigation and the government’s accusations only amount to a cross-referencing of Russian citizens who flew into England and who went to Salisbury on the weekend of the Skripal attack. Nothing has been revealed that connects these men to the Skripals besides the fact that they are all Russian citizens. That we are to accept the government’s accusation on the basis of national profiling is fucking mental. Especially since the case is being used to justify very aggressive anti-Russian foreign policy.
‘What is so unbelievable about that?’ – that you have to ask is itself unbelievable.
‘Stonehenge and Salisbury cathedral sounds like exactly like … tourists planning a day trip
My wife and I often enjoy weekend visits to Edinburgh. When we do we don’t stay in Aberdeen.
@ Professor Plum
You chopped-off the sentence that followed and ignored her point. Here is what Andrea wrote:
“What is so unbelievable about that? If they booked in advanced they would have had no way to know the weather.”
When people book a break in advance its quite normal to decide where they will actually visit *after* making the booking, and quite normal to adjust plans according to the weather.
You are aware that the burden of proof is on the accusing party?
So far the two chaps are guilty of travelling to Salisbury and walking around it. The end.
There is no evidence to connect them to the Skripals, no motive and no opportunity.
‘There is no evidence to connect them to the Skripals, no motive and no opportunity.’
There is circumstantial evidence linking them to the Skripals in the fact they were in Salisbury on the day of the poisoning. They have give spurious reasons for being that has made their position worse in the eyes of those following this story.
Opportunity does seem limited from what we know and as for ‘no motive’ that is merely conjecture on your part at the moment. From what they have provided in terms of the story and lack of evidence to confirm that i.e. pictures, videos etc. their story looks paper thin.
It looks like something is being played out here and only the protagonists are aware of what that is…
“There is circumstantial evidence linking them to the Skripals in the fact they were in Salisbury on the day of the poisoning.” – As were thousands and thousands of other individuals. There were people in close proximity to the ‘victims’ shortly before their collapse.
“They have give spurious reasons for being that has made their position worse in the eyes of those following this story”. This is not even relevant. Would you like to explain the timeline?
The ball is in Mrs. May’s court. They said they had visited some sights and that there should be ample CCTV footage of that.
“Opportunity does seem limited from what we know” Honestly, it looks like almost every single minute of their stay can be accounted for. In stark contract with the Skripals… As pointed out by one of the commentators on the thread, the location of the victim’s house at the end of the cul-de-sac makes it impossible to approach it without being seen by anyone on an early afternoon on Sunday, let alone mess with the door, applying a lethal substance in broad daylight and risking to die of the exposure.
One has to look at the whole picture. The official version cannot pass a laugh test, and nothing adds up.
Professor, first of all your maths is up the spout. The distance from London to Salisbury is c126km – which is about 78 miles.
Second, I don’t think you’ve seen the full video. They flew into London and arrived late due to the weather. They arrived on Friday evening when much of the UK was covered in snow. London is the closest destination to Salisbury that Aeroflot flies to. But they also said they wanted to ‘have fun’ in London. They stayed in Bow, near the Olympic stadium, whilst being close to public transport for the airport and train stations.
You say, “No one who is a capable of looking at this story objectively could be convinced that 2 Russians came to London for a couple of days stayed in a rough 2 star hotel in east London before making their way via public transport to Salisbury of all places on a Sunday with a view to visiting the cathedral while equally planning an unlikely visit to Stonehenge in the last gasps of winter which just happened to be shut but they didnt bother checking before they came.”
I think you’re talking about yourself. Salisbury Cathedral is world famous – you only need see Craig’s post about Jay Z visiting there to see that people do make special trips to Salisbury for it. Throw in Old Sarum and the fairly close by Stonehenge, and you do indeed have a tourist destination. English Heritage, Visit England & Visit Wiltshire all boast about it. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=121&v=ZhmDgtw24No
Finally, I once knew someone from abroad who visited Scotland and spent hours getting to the north of Scotland just to spend minutes there to see where the North Sea meets The Atlantic. Visiting Salisbury with its cathedral, its hosting a copy of the Magna Carta, and maybe seeing Old Sarum and Stonehenge, is actually very easy to believe. I find it much harder to believe that people find it hard to believe.
As for not checking to see if it was closed, remember we are talking about Russians. We don’t know how good their English is. And you don’t know they didn’t check and that may be part of the reason why they didn’t go very far from the station on the Saturday. The weather was better on the Sunday, and Stonehenge was open, but were the roads? Maybe they gave up on the idea the day before, but tried to get to Old Sarum and went the wrong way at the roundabout, taking them up Wilton Road instead.
Perhaps you might also look at the story the UK Government is trying to get us to believe objectively. That is: these two men are Russian GRU agents travelling under false names but with genuine documents. They flew to Heathrow from Russia via Aeroflot. They travelled by public transport to Salisbury, twice, were seen numerous times on CCTV before and after they apparently walked from the Train Station to a cul-de-sac, applied a chemical weapon to an external door knob, in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, without being seen any closer than Wilton Road, then got back to the City Centre, went back past the train station and missed the next available train to go window shopping and sight seeing, before arriving back at Salisbury station at about 1pm, to get a train about 25 minutes later, back to London.
Seriously? Would trained GRU agents really have left such a trail? Would they not have hired or stolen a car to get to Salisbury and avoided all that CCTV of them walking around Salisbury and travelling by train?
Correction – they arrived at the station at just before 2pm and got the train at c14:27. So, to clarify, they were seen in Wilton Road just before mid-day, supposedly put the chemical weapon on the doorknob shortly after that, but then hung around Salisbury for two more hours, because of being reliant on public transport – on a Sunday.
That’s one hell of an escape plan.
You are using the risible meme postulated by HM govt and its media arm as a tool to dismiss the ridiculous alibi these guys have of why they were in Salisbury.
But just like the official narrative it too doesn’t stack up.
I think you’re reaching Jammor.
Yes I will accept the distance as been over estimated – I factored Newham to Salisbury but that was via road. The best estimate is still 111 miles via Google maps though.
However if you come into Heathrow no one is going to want to travel all across London to Bow especially if the intention is to visit Salisbury. Fun in London ok but then East London is not going to be your destination.
You can just as easily find accommodation close to Heathrow for easy access to W. London in the evening. But if you are going to visit Salisbury and all its attractions and you only have a weekend to do so then you are going to stay in the city. But if also the intention is fun in London you will find somewhere accessible to all 3 locations and that will be somewhere probably around SW London say Twickenham Feltham or even Hounslow which will be cheap with access for the waterloo service and the tube into town. The piccadilly i think runs later than most tubes as well.
If the intention is to visit Stonehenge that’s a 10 miles from Salisbury but also will take a good part of your day. The stones are over a mile from the site. If you arrive at mid-day that is either bad planning or something else. As its early March it will still be getting dark fairly early so there wont be much time to visit either let alone both if you have no car.
If you have planned this trip from Russia to visit these sites (bet they have never even heard of Old Sarum) you don’t turn up at midday with little over 4 hours left before the sites will close and it gets dark.
And that is not to mention the time walking around the town centre getting caught on all those cctv cameras.
Failure to believe this story doesn’t mean that the reflex is to accept the official narrative. One doesn’t preclude the other.
This whole story has been unbelievable and the latest addition is merely the next chapter of what looks increasingly like some enigmatic fairly tale …
”If you have planned this trip from Russia to visit these sites (bet they have never even heard of Old Sarum)”
They did mention Old Sarum during the interview. Check the transcript of the full interview, not just some snippets.
The mention of the ancient rotten borough of Old Sarum was the strangest of strange things. It doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page in Dutch, let alone Russian. Half of Devizes probably doesn’t know where it is.
See Antoinette’s post at 15.37hrs
Old Sarum is a well known visitor attraction. I’ve been there myself. See Antoinette’s Trip Advisor link:
“Begin your tour from either Salisbury Train Station or Central Car Park Coach Park in Salisbury.
Explore the medieval city with all of its history and mystique, spending an hour at the Cathedral to take in the tallest spire and the Magna Carta (subject to opening times).
Then make a brief stop at Old Sarum, the original city of Salisbury. This Iron Age settlement became Salisbury after visits from Saxons, Danes, Vikings, and Normans. Old Sarum offers wonderful views over the city and the surrounding landscape. This is where King John had his garrisons in the early 1200s before the barons rose up against the King which resulted in the Magna Carta being sealed in 1215.”
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/AttractionProductReview-g186414-d11472523-Full_Day_Tour_of_Salisbury_and_Stonehenge_from_Salisbury-Salisbury_Wiltshire_Engla.html
“Yes I will accept the distance as been over estimated – I factored Newham to Salisbury but that was via road. The best estimate is still 111 miles via Google maps though.”
They travelled by train. Distance: 79 miles (126 km). You’re still overstating the distance by car. It’s still more like 90 if you do it by road.
“However if you come into Heathrow no one is going to want to travel all across London to Bow especially if the intention is to visit Salisbury. Fun in London ok but then East London is not going to be your destination.”
I’ve stayed in east London for a weekend visit. Cost and public transport links were definite considerations. But noooo, no one does that…
“You can just as easily find accommodation close to Heathrow for easy access to W. London in the evening…”
At the same cost? Heathrow hotels are notoriously expensive. And there is no direct route to Salisbury from there – or at least a viable one. It’s multiple changes on various modes of transport – or a direct train from Waterloo which takes 90 minutes. I think they planned their route to Salisbury better than you would have done.
130 miles for Russians is like popping round to your neighbours… it is quite a large place, you know…
Yes. 2 hours you can go to work in Moscow. And back. It’s not scary. But sadly
I would also like to confess to having bought a pair of Uggs at a Footlocker shop on Oxford Street.
Walking around on high heels had been killing me, and the Uggs saved my life.
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/AttractionProductReview-g186414-d11472523-Full_Day_Tour_of_Salisbury_and_Stonehenge_from_Salisbury-Salisbury_Wiltshire_Engla.html
https://twitter.com/EH_Stonehenge/status/969854381586878464
They are clearly withholding some information. They did, however, challenge the British authorities to release the entire body of the CCTV footage to prove or disprove their story, which has not been done and I bet it will never be done.
A Jew:
“But what would be the point of answering a bad faith question asked by a dissembling antisemite to his shambolic audience of trolls?”
—–
What a pity, Jew, that you ruin an otherwise excellent analysis with that mini-diatribe. True, there are many trolls posting on here but they do not comprise the entire audience. And Craig is no more an antisemite than you are; he is no fan of Likud, which is different. Dissembling? Craig is the scourge of dissemblers in politics and media.
That does not make him infallible. I share your view that he has veered off piste on this topic.
Craig – stop digging.
Please.
I note the post from “A Jew” has been moderated- presumably for its intemperate, and abusive, ending which I criticise above.
That is a pity since before that he makes points of real substance which deserve debate.
It’s enough for anyone who actually understands the Russian language to listen to their original interview for 5 minutes to understand that they are lying.
Speaking as a Russian.
Although I don’t speak Russian, I got that impression too just from reading the sub-titles. They were not wanting to give their real reasons for visiting London and Salisbury.
they are lying as plain illegal steroid dealers.
I too think they were here to make a deal, and I think the UK set up that deal to have them in the area at the time and photographed all the way. The UK is too invested in this operation for the truth to come out, which would undoubtedly include her partners in crime.
I do think they like Gothic architecture though, or at least use that as an excuse for meeting clients across Europe.
1. there are legal and illegal steroids.
2. do not forget those who dislike pay taxes.
vlad putin said, literally – there is nothing TOO criminal. kinda – there are some slightly criminal things, but we could forgive it, 🙂
But they have a greater value in demolishing the UK conspiracy…..after all…if Skripal can be forgiven…these two for any minor discretions…..
yes. they are lying. but not in very single word.
Как же вы определили?
Boris Krylov
September 14 2018, 3:57pm
How did you determine that?
нехорошо в англоязычной борде писать по-руски. могут забанить. впрочем зависит от степени демократизма модератора.
У нас за другие языки не банят. Впрочем – чужой устав…. Если забанят , пойду к американцам, на выборы влиять. 🙂
Boris Krylov
Septmber 14 2018, 4:15pm
We don’t ban other languages. However – someone else’s charter…. If they are banned, I will go to the Americans, to influence the elections. 🙂
быть запрещенным, это право прохода 😉
I was never convinced it was the same person, but I do fancy the one on the right. She looks a lot like my Ex 40 years ago.
https://busy.org/@pagandance/the-wonders-of-novichok-before-and-after
“The Wonders of Novichok – Before and After”
“The Russians Invented It”
“We Perfected It”
Tony
Blimey, she looks like my ex as well! Yours wasn’t called Bridget was she?
MJ, Nah, but she had a somewhat similar genetic history to the two Yulias.
He’s not wrong:
UK’s Political Culture is a Disgrace: Russian UNSC Rep Nebenzya Weighs in on Collapse of Standards
https://thesaker.is/uks-political-culture-is-a-disgrace-russian-unsc-rep-nebenzya-weighs-in-on-collapse-of-standards/
this story is fake because, the assassination of a burnt (I mean defunct) spy has no room in the game of big governments. Tje man was not in the middle of gathering and delivering information or any sensitive operation for Russia to be eliminated.
He was only would tell things in his lecturing or whatever job he had in Britain just to make his British audience happy. He even was not under any kind of protection even with these cameras available on eBay for less than a £100.
This entire story only has had benefit for the Tory government and its foreign allies to create spins and diversion in public, just agitation.
Andy: “Tje man was not in the middle of gathering and delivering information or any sensitive operation for Russia to be eliminated.”
——–
There is a school of thought that he WAS engaged in a very sensitive opeation, contrary to the interests of the Motherland and in violation of the terms of his release.
“The fact that Skripal had not retired but was still briefing on Russia, to me raises to a near certainty the likelihood that Skripal worked with Miller on the Trump dossier.”- Craig Murray, 24 May, 2018
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/05/yulia-skripal-and-the-salisbury-wut/
Note Craig’s reference to the US academic, PR Gregory:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2017/01/13/the-trump-dossier-is-false-news-and-heres-why/#202003a46867
Note that Gregory, a scholar and authority on Russia of impeccable credentials, wrote the FORBES piece a year before any of us had heard of Skripal. I stumbled upon this piece while googling the name of the supposed author, Steele.
If Skripal authored the ludicrous “golden showers” dossier, that would give Igor Korobov, Chief of the GRU, grounds to authorise his assassination.
if the dossier is BS, why GRU has to kill an author????
if your enemy consumes disinformation by his own will – it’s a great achievement of your service.
-Alex-
If he broke the covenant with his former service and engaged in NEW activity injurious to Russia’s strategic interests then he forfeited the normal safety guarantee applicable in spy swaps.
The fact that the product of that activity was BS is irrelevant. What mattered was it targeted the Kremlin’ s preferred candidate in the presidential election – and was later used in an attempt to discredit him.
“…if the particle(s) were as the police state so small as to be harmless to humans, they would be too small for mass spectrometry analysis…”
This sentence really irks me. Just because a particle/molecule is too small to be of harm to humans, doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be detected by mass spec analysis – that is utterly ridiculous.
I think someone has this backwards. If a particle is too small for mass spec analysis, it definitely *would* be far too small to be harmful to humans – and it follows that if a particle is too small for mass spec analysis, then how was it discovered in a hotel room?
Not quite right. Botulinum toxin is something like 1,000 times as toxic as the best claimed novichok on a per microgram dosed basis measured by in standardized lab mice. It is a fairly massive protein that would not pass through the gas chromatography stage nor volatilize off the mass spec platform, one molecule has these atoms C6760 H10447 N1743 O2010 S32 if you want to add that up.
Botulinum toxin is not an OP per se but affects the same acetylcholine neurotransmission system farther upstream. It is a good one to read up on if you are confused, as many here are, about effective dosages: truly miniscule amounts have useful medical and cosmetic applications, larger but still tiny dosages kill.
Decent bit of analysis at The Duran, if you’re interested: “UK nerve agent case against Russia collapses”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIVsxe5NoYg
” Their car was caught on CCTV on three cameras heading out of Salisbury to the North East. At 13.15 it was again caught on camera heading back in to the town centre from the North West. ”
Not quite correct as one of the roads Skripal’s car was seen on was Wilton Road which heads roughly north west from Salisbury, it and Devizes Road where the car was last seen at 1330 would be routes the Skripals would take to get to and from their home and Salisbury town centre.
If the two suspects had come to visit Stonehenge or the cathedral why did they walk in the completely opposite direction to the town centre? Like all tourist towns Salisbury has good signposting.
“Like all tourist towns Salisbury has good signposting.” – In English. How well do these Russians read or speak English? And were they perhaps trying to get to Old Sarum on foot? They did say that they wanted to go there as well.
This is the signage on Fisherton Street from the train station, at St Paul’s roundabout, which they went past to go up Wilton Road.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.0716636,-1.8046664,3a,75y,311.85h,73.64t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2BZqNL4MSdSwEhCNYu4E-w!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
There are tourist signs back nearer the station pointing to the Cathedral, but nothing points to Old Sarum. I think they had sussed that they could visit the cathedral on the way back from Old Sarum, but never got there because they went the wrong way. So they back tracked and ended up back in the city centre, where they say they went into the cathedral and CCTV catches them window shopping.
Old Sarum is 2 miles north of Salisbury so they were still heading in the wrong direction. If their English was poor did they not think to equip themselves with a map in their native language before they left home or have a sat nav on their phones?
They were seen on CCTV at the station at 1305 and were back in time to catch the 1350, the cathedral is described as being a 10 minute walk from the station so had they gone straight there and back they’d have had a maximum 25 minutes to look round! As the CCTV from the shop shows they were clearly dawdling, window shopping, so would’ve had much less. When caught window shopping they were clearly just killing time waiting for the next train to Waterloo which only run hourly on a weekend.
None of what you say undermines what I’ve said. And you’ve got a couple of things wrong.
They arrived in Salisbury at c11:45, and were on CCTV at 11:48. They were seen in Wilton Road at 11:58, which suggests they walked there quickly, as it is about 10-15 minutes from the station. They were on the wrong side of the road to go to the Skripal House, but of course they could have crossed the road – but no one saw them go to Skripal’s cul-de-sac house and approach his door at what must have been just after mid-day, on a Sunday, which given all the CCTV of them either side of this, is some feat.
They were seen back the other side of the Train Station, in Fisherton Street at 13:05 and 13:08. The direction of travel actually has them heading back towards the station, from the direction of The Cathedral – except that they have crossed the road in the latter CCTV image and are on the wrong side of the road for the station. They are next seen at what was supposedly 13:49 at Dauwalders collectables, which is actually in-between where the CCTV has them on Fisherton Street between 13:05 and 13:08! This is also on the side of the road they crossed over to – but they were supposedly at the station at 13:50, which is a about 5 minutes from Dauwalders, so their CCTV time seems to be dubious, although they were clearly outside at some point – but the other CCTV images suggest it would have been between 13:05 and 13:08. This therefore leaves a 42 minute gap where they could have turned around and gone to the cathedral, or
Oh and according to my information, trains on a Sunday leave for London hourly at 27 minutes past the hour, so there was no train at 13:50; they had to wait about 35 minutes for it.
So, did they got to the cathedral between 13:08 and 13:50, or did they go to the cathedral between mid-day and 1pm? Given that they evidently walk quite quickly and were in Wilton Road at 11:58 (which is 0.8 miles from the train station, walked in 10 minutes), if they turned around fairly quickly, they could have been at the cathedral for c12:20 – and hour earlier than you suggest.
So, I agree that maybe they only had about half an hour or so at the cathedral, in any event, but perhaps that was enough. I agree that they seem ill-prepared for a trip around Salisbury, which could be down to a mixture of lack of experience or not being that bright or IT savvy. My suggestion that they got lost trying to get to Old Sarum is admittedly conjecture, and they got back to the station earlier than they needed to. However, none of this use of public transport, or their walking and their wanderings around Salisbury city centre and getting seen on CCTV both in Salisbury at all, or anywhere near the Skripal home, suggests the workings of any kind of spy or assassin. It is more suggestive of a couple of foreigners in a foreign land underestimating the British weather and overestimating their own ability to navigate a foreign city.
Wilton Rd is effectively an extension of Fisherton Street – its name changes at the roundabout. Probably over-confident of their ability to navigate by following their noses, they took a wrong turn and headed away from the city centre – instead of towards it. After a few minutes of thinking ‘this doesn’t look right at all’, they would have turned back towards town.
I myself am over-confident of my navigational ability and frequently go the wrong way (but rarely come to harm and have not mended my ways). They could easily have come out of the station with the wrong assumption that they were headed south, when in fact they were headed east. Coming to a road junction, they would have then taken a left turn – thinking this would now take them east towards the town – when they were already headed east and had now turned left towards the north-west. (I managed to lose my bearings exactly this way in the streets around Oxford Circus just last week. It cost me all of twenty minutes.)
imagine, novichok comes with an effective antidot with zero side-effects, so no hazmat, nor gas masks neither gloves.
only poeple around you, fall dead
This post, and the comments below, would make one despair in the fate of humanity even more than the average Trump rally. Don’t you guys ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder: “Why am I working so hard to convince myself and everyone around me that a cruel dictator is telling the truth about not attempting to have two of his compatriots killed and that the democratically (ish) elected government of the country where I actually live is lying through its teeth for no obvious reason?”
And yes, this website is one big echo chamber willing to believe whatever Craig dishes out, but Twitter is not. Welcome to the world outside the echo chamber. (Free tip, if you block enough people eventually no one in your Twitter timeline will contradict you…)
imho, the person who lives in a world of “cruel dictators” and “democratically elected govs” is or deeply naive, or slightly mad.
It’s not that most people don’t agree with you – it’s that Craig deletes replies he doesn’t like. As you will shortly find out.
I think you’ll find the mods are careful to delete those replies which are gratuitously insulting.
What is a non-gratuitous insult?
Answer : one of your own insults.
Says the sensitive Charles Bostock, infamous for poking fun at people’s names.
[ MOD: This is just one of the numerous pseudonyms used by the commenter otherwise known as “James” ]
Someone didn’t like my gay organist hypothesis, which was neither insulting, off topic, ad hominem , straw man, or Schilling in any way. It was a multiple entry on one thread, but I doubt that was the rationale behind its expunging.
It was just funny, at a puerile Pythonesque level.
I’m pleased you chose that comment for restoration. It makes my point rather well. Rigid enforcement of this rule is unworkable; “sock puppetry” is obviously rife on here, and inevitably.
Much of what I posted was taken down because it was silly, not because of multiple identities on one thread. Fair enough, and it’s “your” blog.
[ MOD: Your comments were removed solely for infringing the sockpuppetry rule. The quality was indeed high, so why not attribute them to your primary identity? They can be reposted as “James”, if that’s what you would prefer. ]
My experiments have revealed an editorial bias, at variance with the ostensible ethos being a free-speech forum. In the maelstrom of tish tosh getting posted, especially recently about the Skripals, I fully accept that a heavy hand may well be necessary at this time.
From many of the comments that are allowed to persist on here, I suggest multiple identities are the least of CM’s issues of credibility.
prosperum iter facias
I refer to my comments on your deleted post at 15.38 above. You shot yourself in the foot by being gratuitously offensive at the end.
That is a great shame because your post was otherwise thoughtful and worthy of serious analysis. I urge you to re-post, this time without the needless name- calling.
To convince sceptics of the official narrative, why not simply square the circle in terms of the timing of the Skripals departure from home and the suspects’ arrival in Salusbury? Why are you dodging Craig’s simple question and instead launching into a blindly furious Cold Warrior/ Tory apologist rant?
Don’t you ever wake up in the middle of the night and wonder: “Why am I working so hard to convince myself and everyone around me that a demonstrably idiotic and desperate piece of propaganda might have some truth to it after all, just to legitimise the protection of some deranged head-choppers and heart-munchers who only a few months ago everyone wanted to see driven off the face of the earth? Have I really become a jihadi jackass and brainless oaf?
Putin has more democratic backing than any Western leader.
It’s something the West fails to understand – just how much support Putin has in Russia.
Oh dear, Martined.
So you believe two Russian GRU agents flew into London via Aeroflot, made two trips to Salisbury the first being reconnaissance, where they failed to go anywhere near Skripal’s home, and on the second, they were incompetent enough to be caught on camera in fairly close by Wilton Road, yet managed to visit a cul-de-sac literally in the middle of the day, on a Sunday, and apply a chemical weapon to a door knob of a house at the end of the cul-de-sac, without being seen, then walked back to central Salisbury, went sight-seeing and window shopping until nearly 2pm before getting a train at c2.30pm back to London, getting caught on CCTV on numerous occasions – when all they had to do to avoid pretty much all of that, was either rent or steal a car in London and drive to Salisbury.
As for motive, that’s easy. They want to paint Russia as a user of chemical weapons, to help justify maintaining the civil war and attacking Syria. The UK has sat on the allegation of Novichok being found in the hotel the Russians used, for months, before May and the Police revealed it at the beginning of the latest session of Parliament, just prior to PMQs – and just as the Syrian’s are about to deal with the insurgents and terrorists in Idlib.
You may also recall that the Skripal poisoning occurred just a month before the alleged chemical weapon attack in Douma, which resulted in Israel, the US, the UK and France bombing Syria.
Yes.
And, for the record: Having worked in government for years, I would never accept the argument that the government (of country X) couldn’t possibly behind something because it was done with mistakes. Nor, for the record, the idea that the government (of country Y) was behind something that would have required the perfect execution of a complex conspiracy.
Oddly enough,Martinned, I could also claim that I have worked in Government for years.
“And, for the record: Having worked in government for years, I would never accept the argument that the government (of country X) couldn’t possibly behind something because it was done with mistakes.”
I quite agree. But all these “mistakes” add up to utter incompetence in both planning and execution by two alleged assassins. I’ve seen a string of errors look like a conspiracy, but not a conspiracy look like a string of errors – when it would have been so easy to avoid all this public transport and street CCTV by…err…not walking or using public transport.
“Nor, for the record, the idea that the government (of country Y) was behind something that would have required the perfect execution of a complex conspiracy.”
Perfect execution? It’s the shabbiest tale of attempted assassination I can recall ever seeing – which is one reason why I have so much trouble believing this account. Throw in the the rush to judgement and the timing of what has been going on in Syria…
Your trolling is becoming predictable and tedious.
And Twitter is one big echo chamber for people who can, on the whole, only cope with one sentence sound bites on which to base an opinion.