Skripals – The Mystery Deepens 3063


The time that “Boshirov and Petrov” were allegedly in Salisbury carrying out the attack is all entirely within the period the Skripals were universally reported to have left their home with their mobile phones switched off.

A key hole in the British government’s account of the Salisbury poisonings has been plugged – the lack of any actual suspects. And it has been plugged in a way that appears broadly convincing – these two men do appear to have traveled to Salisbury at the right time to have been involved.

But what has not been established is the men’s identity and that they are agents of the Russian state, or just what they did in Salisbury. If they are Russian agents, they are remarkably amateur assassins. Meanwhile the new evidence throws the previously reported timelines into confusion – and demolishes the theories put out by “experts” as to why the Novichok dose was not fatal.

This BBC report gives a very useful timeline summary of events.

At 09.15 on Sunday 4 March the Skripals’ car was seen on CCTV driving through three different locations in Salisbury. Both Skripals had switched off their mobile phones and they remained off for over four hours, which has baffled geo-location.

There is no CCTV footage that indicates the Skripals returning to their home. It has therefore always been assumed that they last touched the door handle around 9am.

But the Metropolitan Police state that Boshirov and Petrov did not arrive in Salisbury until 11.48 on the day of the poisoning. That means that they could not have applied a nerve agent to the Skripals’ doorknob before noon at the earliest. But there has never been any indication that the Skripals returned to their home after noon on Sunday 4 March. If they did so, they and/or their car somehow avoided all CCTV cameras. Remember they were caught by three CCTV cameras on leaving, and Borishov and Petrov were caught frequently on CCTV on arriving.

The Skripals were next seen on CCTV at 13.30, driving down Devizes road. After that their movements were clearly witnessed or recorded until their admission to hospital.

So even if the Skripals made an “invisible” trip home before being seen on Devizes Road, that means the very latest they could have touched the doorknob is 13.15. The longest possible gap between the novichok being placed on the doorknob and the Skripals touching it would have been one hour and 15 minutes. Do you recall all those “experts” leaping in to tell us that the “ten times deadlier than VX” nerve agent was not fatal because it had degraded overnight on the doorknob? Well that cannot be true. The time between application and contact was between a minute and (at most) just over an hour on this new timeline.

In general it is worth observing that the Skripals, and poor Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, all managed to achieve almost complete CCTV invisibility in their widespread movements around Salisbury at the key times, while in contrast “Petrov and Boshirov” managed to be frequently caught in high quality all the time during their brief visit.

This is especially remarkable in the case of the Skripals’ location around noon on 4 March. The government can only maintain that they returned home at this time, as they insist they got the nerve agent from the doorknob. But why was their car so frequently caught on CCTV leaving, but not at all returning? It appears very much more probable that they came into contact with the nerve agent somewhere else, while they were out.

“Boshirov and Petrov” plainly are of interest in this case. But only Theresa May stated they were Russian agents: the police did not, and stated that they expected those were not their real identities. We do not know who Boshirov and Petrov were. It appears very likely their appearance was to do with the Skripals on that day. But they may have been meeting them, outside the home. The evidence points to that, rather than doorknobs. Such a meeting might explain why the Skripals had turned off their mobile phones to attempt to avoid surveillance.

It is also telling the police have pressed no charges against them in the case of Dawn Sturgess, which would be manslaughter at least if the government version is true.

If “Boshirov and Petrov” are secret agents, their incompetence is astounding. They used public transport rather than a vehicle and left the clearest possible CCTV footprint. They failed in their assassination attempt. They left traces of novichok everywhere and could well have poisoned themselves, and left the “murder weapon” lying around to be found. Their timings in Salisbury were extremely tight – and British Sunday rail service dependent.

There are other possibilities of who “Boshirov and Petrov” really are, of which Ukrainian is the obvious one. One thing I discovered when British Ambassador to Uzbekistan was that there had been a large Ukrainian ethnic group of scientists working at the Soviet chemical weapon testing facility there at Nukus. There are many other possibilities.

Yesterday’s revelations certainly add to the amount we know about the Skripal event. But they raise as many new questions as they give answers.


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3,063 thoughts on “Skripals – The Mystery Deepens

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  • George Brennan

    Phil BC calls Craig Murray is a crank and a conspiracy theorist. He thinks “in all probablity” Putin did not directely order the hit. But based on his knowledge of society and history as a messy business, Phil is confident that it was an FSB underling did order the hit, to hit to curry favour with the top bosses. He points to a factual error which I think CM has already. The question is, should our foreign poliy be safely based on Phil’s intuitions as an expert sociolgist?

    It seems to me it can never be wrong for the Left to point out holes in an official account and to demand answers. Secrecy is the soul of government. When we go beyond that and posit deliberate fabrication of evidence by authorities, we have to shoulder a big burden of proof. Failure to know when burden is unmet is what marks out those fertial speculators who give Conspiracy Theory a bad name. I dont see that Craig has committed that sin.
    If there is anything stranger than the readidnes to belief in consparies it is the readiness of some leftists to win respectablity without effort by using “conspiracy theory” as a swear word. Phil is just namecalling.

    http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2018/09/here-come-cranks.html

    • joeblogs

      I do not see how the term ‘conspiracy theorist’ can be pejorative; the definition is two or more people, meeting in secret, to plan an unlawful act against a third party.
      Judges and police deal with these matters every day – all criminal investigations into conspiracies are theories, until the evidence proves them to be fact. At this point, the authorities charge the suspects with the crime.
      It is clear that, since the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, at least, all pretense of adhering to due process of law has been abandoned – making the UK, literally, an ‘outlaw.’

      • Alyson

        The term conspiracy has been corrupted by the media to suggest fantasist. Conspiracy means what it says, so there’s no need to laugh up our sleeves at the term

  • Paul Carline

    I learned from UK Column News that traces of Novichok had allegedly been found in the London hotel room used by the two alleged Russian agents. This is puzzling. We are talking about their seemingly well-documented visit in early March.
    Yet the claim that traces of the ‘nerve agent’ were found in their hotel room was made only yesterday, by the PM – begging numerous questions:
    – why was their visit in March already treated with sufficient suspicion by the police/secret services that their room was searched? There can surely be only one explanation: that the men were already known to the UK agencies (police and/or MI5/MI6).
    – why was this finding not made public at the time? One might reasonably suspect that this ‘evidence’ was kept under wraps for future – planned – use; suggesting that the whole affair may well have been meticulously scripted from start to finish.
    – if it is true that traces of nerve agent were found in the room, why did it take 250 detectives searching thousands of hours of CCTV tape to turn up ‘proof’ of their visit?
    – if the ‘Novichok’ found ‘by accident’ by the couple in Amesbury was, as Mr. Rowley has stated, securely sealed in a boxed spray perfume – something the PM used to claim that this was how the two Russians managed to get their toxic weapon through security (both in Moscow and London) – and if, as is claimed, it is ‘definitely’ the same agent used in Salisbury; how did these presumably well-trained GRU agents manage to leave traces of it in their room? (did they open the spray bottle there? if so, how did they then manage to place it in a sealed designer packaging?); how did sprayable nerve agent change its properties so as to be capable of sticking to a door handle (not forgetting the absence of CCTV evidence to show that the Skripals returned home after the ‘GRU men’ had done their dirty work)?
    There has been speculation that the men might have been employed by someone like Berezovsky to ‘neutralize’ Skripal. But this scenario doesn’t explain the searching of their hotel room or their lack of caution in moving about.
    My intuition tells me that this is, as suggested above, a carefully scripted ‘false flag’ event. The photos of the two men – swarthy and quite malevolent-looking – remind me of the photos routinely published of alleged ‘Islamic terrorists’: they have to look evil. Their appearance and movements reminds me also of those of the alleged Muslim perpetrators of the staged London Tube and bus bombings – and of the two alleged ‘terrorists’ blamed for the similarly staged Boston Marathon bombing.
    The idea of a fully scripted false flag event seems to be to be far more plausible than the idea that the British government merely made use of an attempted ‘contract killing’ to demonise Russia and Putin. Specifically the withholding – for 6 months! – of the information about the alleged search of the hotel room argues for a constructed plot.

    • HoBoJo

      Also note the poison in Salisbury was administered after they had left the hotel. So the only way the room could be contaminated was if they unsealed the bottle themselves in the hotel room one of the days before – and then slept there in a contaminated room with no ill effects. It would also have meant them travelling across England on public transport with an unsealed bottle of Novichok in a pocket or rucksack (their travel luggage presumably would have been left in Waterloo since they didn’t have it in Salisbury).

    • Jo1

      One might also wonder, if they too were exposed to this substance in their room, why they didn’t fall ill too.

    • N_

      The official line is that the hotel room was not searched until 4 May.

      And Berezovsky was found dead in 2012. You may mean his pal Glushkov?

      Let me emphasise that Berezovsky is a HUGE part of the background to the recent history of British-Russian relations.

      • Paul Greenwood

        Berezhovsky and the Grand Larceny (nice Russian film “Tycoon” about him)
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tycoon_(2002_film)

        but William Browder has a part too………as does Mikhail Khordokovsky and his deal to sell Russian oil reserves to Exxon (Rex Tillerson ?) to dismantle Russian economic security……….and of course the Legatum boys the Chandlers

    • goodkurtz

      I thought about the congruity of gel and spray myself.
      If they’d sprayed the door knob there were of course been some general dissipation and bounce back from the knob endangering the suspects.
      Unfortunately, given that I think the story given out is balls there could be an answer to this one.
      The suspects could have applied a neutral gel to the door knob first then spayed it the novichok being immediately absorbed by the gel increasing the safety of the suspects.

    • kurtz

      “why was their visit in March already treated with sufficient suspicion by the police/secret services that their room was searched?”

      It was in May that the room was searched and novichok found.

    • Keith McClary

      “securely sealed in a boxed spray perfume – something the PM used to claim that this was how the two Russians managed to get their toxic weapon through security (both in Moscow and London)”

      An obviously fake box labelled “5.5 ml – 17FL OZ”. This might catch the attention of security since the max allowed size is 3.4 oz. Also, customs is supposed to look out for counterfeit merchandise. Stupid GRU.

  • Republicofscotland

    Jeez oh, LBC’s Maajid Nawaz, giving it stinking to Corbyn, harking back to Corbyn’s days of receiving money for a Press TV show.

    Chomsky was correct when he implied that the media is owned and ran by the rich, who employ mostly obedient and similar thinking individuals, to keep the status quo.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lLcpcytUnWU

    • joeblogs

      SharpEars
      Actually, it is not repeated.
      Mr. Murray’s blog seems to have taken on a life of its own – almost viral, in fact, with literally hundreds of brand new posters coming on line, all the time, and posting links to other alt sites with still more insight into not just this case, but into history, geopolitics and so forth.
      I believe this is a good thing: the reaction has become bigger than the cause (the article).

      • George

        Yes – it’s nice to see a blog site that still generates a huge amount of interaction. So many seem to have just stalled to a halt. Has Twitter swallowed up everything?

        • N_

          Interesting, @George, that many blogs are slowing to a halt. I only go to about four, and they’re all doing well: this one, another critical one which has much lower traffic, and two that aren’t critical. This one is getting hit by Fa卐ebook, last I heard. The blog genre has always been horribly icky, as has Web 2.0 in general.

    • Vivian O'Blivion

      Craig’s pal Randy Credico was getting a grilling from team Mueller at the end of the week. Mueller is targeting the Prince of the dark arts, Rodger Stone by pressuring his associates. Crazy Rudy’s assertions that Mueller will wind up his investigation any day now are wishful thinking. Mueller is still nibbling around the edges of a very large pie at the centre of which sit Rodger Stone and the Orange Emperor.

      https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/07/mueller-grand-jury-questions-credico-811127

      • pretzelattack

        mueller is a hack, and a prince of the dark arts, too. he is constrained in the corruption he can investigate, because in targetting trump he might bring in much of official washington, so he pursues the russiagate nonsense.

        • Paul Greenwood

          Mueller is up to his neck in Ukraine……he has so much invested there for Hillary. He is rather careless with evidence but Joe McCarthy was too even if Bobby Kennedy worked alongside him and the Kennedy family were his close friends.

    • Anon1

      What Sharp Ears means to say is that she’s struggling for sufficient space and attention on what is by rights “her” blog.

        • Anon1

          Perhaps there is something in the idea that God helps those who support Israel. I mean all the anti-Israel obsessives are complete losers aren’t they? And it would seem that all countries that hate Israel are, too.

          But in not into all that. No, it’s more likely that if your a complete loser irl, then you take up a hobby like hating Israel. In then just seems like God hates those who hate Israel, but in fact they hate themselves.

          • Paul Greenwood

            Really ? As I recall YHWH was often displeased with “Israel” and had their kingdom occupied by Rome, sacked by Babylonians and only freed by Persians……….

            I don’t see much in the “Jewish Bible” to suggest YHWH was best pleased with the various tribes in Judea and nothing to suggest he has any great predilection today. Maybe US taxpayer funding – what is it now 45% all US foreign aid since 1945 ? It works wonders and proves Israel doesn’t trust in YHWH

        • Kerch'eee Kerch'ee Coup

          Obviously Conquistador mindsets prevail in the two countries. The destruction of Maya cultures and villages over the last fifty years has been greatly aided and abetted by Guatemala’s false friend

    • pete

      I am not sure that a delay between posts in necessarily bad, it gives us time to reflect and investigate the information we have received. For example if I had not followed up Chris Friel’s posts at Academia.edu I would not have been able to also see his further analysis on Muralgate and his further notes on the tweets of Nick Cohen, whose wiki entry led me to Robin Shepherd and the now defunct Just Journalism website. From that I went to the stored pages of Just Journalism on the Web Archive’s Wayback machine and its relationship to the Henry Jackson Society and New Labour. It is all very instructive.

  • MaryPaul

    Does anyone seriously still believe the Skripals were infected by a Novichok agent in the form of a gel smeared on their door handle?

    • Stonky

      Hamish de Bretton Gordon, in a previous incarnation, before he was told to peddle an entirely new set of lies on the BBC.

  • Sharp Ears

    Clive Myrie’s report from Libya was much longer than the 1.39 min version on the website. It was good.

    What is the matter with the BBC when they go to the trouble of sending a reporter and a film crew there and then squelch it? I should think the original was ten minutes long.

    Perhaps it was too much for Agent Cameron (and Sarkozy) to bear.

    Libya violence: The human cost of Tripoli unrest
    A ceasefire was recently agreed between rival factions in the Libyan capital, but the impact of fighting has had a devastating impact on communities.
    The BBC’s Clive Myrie reports from Tripoli.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/45455498/libya-violence-the-human-cost-of-tripoli-unrest

    It was heart breaking to see the grandfather who had lost two of his grandchildren, shot and killed for no reason.

    • Sharp Ears

      Whereas RT knock the BBC into a cocked hat. They have Neil Clark’s report.

      Libya in chaos seven years after NATO’s ‘liberation’, but who cares?

      [Neil Clark is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. He has written for many newspapers and magazines in the UK and other countries including The Guardian, Morning Star, Daily and Sunday Express, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Spectator, The Week, and The American Conservative. He is a regular pundit on RT and has also appeared on BBC TV and radio, Sky News, Press TV and the Voice of Russia. He is the co-founder of the Campaign For Public Ownership @PublicOwnership. His award winning blog can be found at http://www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. He tweets on politics and world affairs @NeilClark66 ]
      7 Sep, 2018 14:57

      https://www.rt.com/op-ed/437893-libya-chaos-nato-violence/

      How is his court case against Kamm going? Anyone know?

      • Mary Paul

        I know this will not be popular but shouldn’t the Libyans take some responsibility to clear up their country? As far as I am aware there was a reasonable standard of education there. It was not Pakistan for example.

        • Alyson

          Libya is firmly in the grip of militias and all the efforts to get elections set up have been systematically destroyed by these militias. The skave trade is thriving though, and the people smugglers gave a clear run from sub Saharan Africa. Thanks Tony (Middle East peace envoy). Great success

        • Paul Greenwood

          Yes perhaps but Libya was not even a country until Mussolini made it one by building a railway and uniting regions like Cyrenaica and Tripoli.

          It was the use of oil by Ghadaffi to spread wealth around that made him anathema to the West plus his desire for a Gold Dinar to replace US Dollar in oil sales – and Libyan crude is exceptional for blending not junk like Saudi oil.

          US does not want Libya to function – it wants it splintered like its plans for Syria, Iraq, Russia, Nigeria – so oil can be controlled by its strongman.

          • Charles Bostock

            Inconsistency there – Libya should be splintered up…and controlled (all the splinters?) by A US strongman (singular)? How does that work?

      • Charles Bostock

        “How is his court case against Kamm going? Anyone know?”

        Why don’t you go to Neil Clark’s website/blog and find out for yourself?

  • Reg

    Saw this comment in the Indy

    “Thus is what I think happened in the Skripal poisoning. After his wife’s and son’s death Skripal became very lonely and isolated in the UK. He wanted to go home. His mother was elderly and not in good health. His daughter was in Russia. So he made contact with the Russian government but he had to offer something valuable to the Russian government for his repatriation. Negotiations had to done through his daughter as obviously everything else would be monitored. Most probably he offered information on the dodgy dossier which he had helped compile and which had been commissioned by the UK government/Establishment to damage the chances of Trump in the election. Any evidence of this would have been dynamite for the Russian government. However, his daughter would have most definitely been under intense surveillance in the UK so taking physical documents would have been impossible. So I suspect the role of the two guys in Salisbury was to check Skripal had the evidence he said he had. According to news reports on 3 March the Skripals left home early in the morning with their phones switched off possibly to avoid being located. During that period Julia may have had an MI5/MI6 proof phone and was in contact with the two guys as they travelled to Salisbury, who they met sometime after their arrival.. Aware that something was odd was going on MI5/MI6 contacted Skripal once the phones were switched to tell him that they needed to meet at around 4pm in the park. This may well have been why Skripal was so worried and anxious in the restaurant. The couple filmed near the park carrying a red bag, may have poisoned him with fentanyl as it was necessary for MI5/MI6 to put Skripal out of action as soon as possible to stop the role of the UK government/Establishment in the dossier being revealed. Trump might very well have cut off relations with the UK. To put all this behind them the UK government invited Trump for a state visit. Any holes?”

    Also seems to make sense to me? To repeat what the original poster said any holes?

    The other thing that occurs to me is this; if Skripal was liaising on his organised crime contacts, as previous scandals have been about a nexus between organised crime the intelligence services and extremist groups (Iran contra for example) where it becomes impossible to know who is pulling whose strings, Sam Giancana using the US intelligence services to monitor his then girlfriend for example as quid pro quo for services rendered in an attempt to kill Castro for example. Did Skripal have dirt on western intelligence connections with organised crime or extremist groups, and would Russian organised crime be a way into the Russian Security State for western intelligence, would this information be a trade-able asset? Why are the UK security state so keen to not allow the Skripals to make unfettered statements to the press, what do they have to hide? This is I understand highly speculative, but it is true the UK government are obviously keen that the Skripals do not make uncensored statements to the press, why is this? Even if these two intended to meet the Skripals it does not follow that their intention was to kill or incapacitate them, as the poster in the Indy implied why do you turn off location on your smart phone unless you mean to meet someone and not want it known to the UK security services?
    After all even if you switch off your smartphone and switch off location it still tracks your movements?

    Why carry out the attack when Yulia was visiting, as this would require a visa making the Russian and UK services fully aware of her coming to the UK long in advance? Even if the Russian wanted to assassinate Sergi, why when Yulia was visiting, to what advantage? Sergi was arrested in 2004, why not carry out an attack before or after the Yulia visit? To whose advantage was it that a photogenic young woman was on all the front pages connected to an alleged Russian attack? This does not suggest revenge, but developments also involving Yulia, possibly even inadvertently due to the perception of the UK security services who viewed this meeting as dangerous, or one they could exploit? There is also no chain of evidence that the initial attack was Novachock as the OPCW were not invited until much later, and used secondary samples taken by the UK state, contaminating the evidence later is then much easier.

    • Blunderbuss

      I think the OPCW did take their own blood samples from the Skripals but, by that time, I doubt if any detectable traces of poison would still be in the blood.

      • Blunderbuss

        I expect the Skripals’ blood chemistry would still be abnormal, because of the poisoning, and this might be typical of organophosphate poisoning but, unless Novichok has previously been tested on humans, I doubt if it would be enough positively to identify Novichok as the poison.

      • MJ

        “I doubt if any detectable traces of poison would still be in the blood”

        If there were dectable traces of a “military-grade” nerve-agent in their blood they would be dead.

      • Reg

        Problem is given that the UK and US governments have been all to willing to conduct germ and chemical warfare experiments on its own citizens we have no idea when this contamination took place. We have no idea if the main incapacitant was a nerve agent. The incapacitant could of been something other than Novachuck, and while under custody and incapacitated a carefully administered trace could of been added to the victims to add credibility to this otherwise absurd story of Novacuck being used in an assassination attempt that did not result in the instant death of two targets. Particularly as an agent was used in an apparent attempt to implicate Russia as was the other absurd story of the use of Polonium. If the UK had nothing to hide why not call in the OPCW immediately, unless they wanted to doctor evidence and roll out a preprepared propaganda story implicating the Russians. Particularly as only 24 hrs was given for Russia to respond after the attack and before an investigation was even underway the UK did not want a meaningful response and were not interested in evidence.

        The attack occurred on the 4th March, but the OPCW did not visit Salisbury until 21 Mar which again does not indicate an attempt to get to the truth by the UK. The OPCW cannot disprove a different incapacitant was used over 2 weeks after the attack even if Novachuck was found. No chain of evidence.

        In this scenario the British State did not mean to kill the Skripals, but wanted long lingering photo opportunities (like Livinyenko) where the victims would denounce the Russian state as they recovered over a period of weeks. In this scenario Novachuck could not of been used as it would be impossible to dose them and be fairly sure they would not die losing all the photo opportunities, so you would use something else to mimic symptoms, which does not work if the OPCW is taking samples the following day. It is reasonable to assume the Skripals did not play ball, which is why they were kept so long away from the media, with a carefully scripted communica much later.

        That rubbish had not been cleared 4 months later so two ex homeless people could pick up a Nerve agent in an atomiser is also absurd particularly given the danger to the alleged assassins would anybody in their right mind carry Sarin much less Novachuck in a perfume spray bottle? And how would they do this without being contaminated? Particularly given the long painful death from someone handling Novachuck whose NBC suit developed a leak in a carefully controlled laboratory as part of the Soviet program.

        Did these two alleged assassins bring a perfume bottle full of Novachuck through customs, or synthesize it in the UK, how given how long they were in the UK? Did someone else synthesise it in the UK, and who? How could they bring it through customs without the risk of customs opening it up or a rough landing killing everybody on the plane? Being targeted by the UK state is however more credible to lend credibility to a story that was falling apart, if the UK state was quite willing to kill UK soldiers in sarin nerve agent experiments, two former homeless people would not even enter as a consideration.

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1410043/Porton-Down-used-soldiers-for-Sarin-gas-tests-in-1983.html

      • Paul Greenwood

        I doubt The High Court would issue an Order for a Non-UK body to take blood samples from people in an NHS hospital under police protection. I believe an NHS Medic/ Porton Down Medic or Police Medic might be empowered to take samples and hand them on retaining a cross-check sample themselves

        • Reg

          Does not matter under close examination from the OPCW from day one would of made it more difficult to contaminate evidence.

  • Stonky

    I posted this by mistake in reply to a commenter called Olaf – which in a sense it was. But I actually meant to put it at the end of the discussion as a contribution to the wider debate:

    “Why would you put what appeared to be an unopened package of expensive perfume, that actually contained some dangerous substance, into a charity bin? Because you could be almost certain that the person who found it would be a jakey or a junkie. In other words, somebody expendable, that nobody is going to get overly worked up about.”

    The point I was making was this:

    Imagine you are a GRU operative who has just carried out an assassination mission, and you have an extra dose of the poison in a perfume bottle that you don’t need and want to get rid of. Where would you put it?

    Somewhere in any of a million places that it will never ever be found again.

    Imagine that you’re a piece of rat-faced scum involved in a delightfully cunning plot that will ultimately provide the UK and its allies with a pretext for bombing the shit out of Syria. Where would YOU put your perfume bottle of poison?

    In a place where it’s almost certain to be found, but not by anybody who matters too much in the greater scheme of things.

    • Blunderbuss

      I was thinking along the same lines but with a slight difference. The villains were disappointed that their poison failed to kill the Skripals and they decided to have another try, using a different method of dispensing the poison. This could provide useful results for their next assassination attempt. Charlie and Dawn were somehow tricked into becoming guinea pigs.

      • Doodlebug

        http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/16689826.details-released-of-perfume-bottle-containing-novichok-found-by-charlie-rowley/

        “OFFICERS have released further details about the Novichok container found by Charlie Rowley.

        “They said during a search of Mr Rowley’s home address in Muggleton Road in July a small box labelled as Nina Ricci Premier Jour was recovered from a rubbish bag in the kitchen.

        “The next day a small glass bottle with a modified nozzle was found on a kitchen worktop.”

        So an empty perfume box is deemed suspicious enough to be removed from the kitchen rubbish bag and a small bottle, clearly branded so as to coincide with the suspicious box is not noticed until the following day – in the same kitchen?

        • Max_B

          In many of the photographs of drug dealer busts I’ve seen, the production line often takes place in the kitchen, normally on a kitchen worktop.

          Most women I’ve seen keep their perfume either in the bedroom, or the bathroom, or perhaps in a handbag. I’ve not tended to notice women keeping their perfume on the kitchen worktop.

          I keep looking at that modified long straight nozzle on the bottle, and everything I can find suggests these types of nozzle design are commonly used for dispensing more hazardous liquids, like acids and solvents. They are used, as they can reach deeper into the container the liquid is being dispensed into, and in doing so, there is much less risk of splash back.

          • Doodlebug

            Indeed. I imagine CR’s retro-fit story would be that he assembled the dispenser in the kitchen, which is where DS then tried it for the first (and only) time. Hence not discovered in the bathroom. The nozzle certainly appears more ‘industrial’ than one would associate with a fragrance. I guess everything hinges on how that bottle arrived in that house.

          • Max_B

            It doesn’t look identical, but it looks similar. I guess it achieves a similar result by reaching deeper into the mouth, rather than the reaching deeper into the container, into which the liquid is being dispensed. But we don’t know whether Rowley’s dispenser produced a spray, or a stream.

          • Doodlebug

            @Max_B

            In response to your earlier question of usage, I should suppose the bottle to have been reasonably full when retrieved by the police, allowing only for CR’s spilling a little and Dawn’s one and only trial, once the nozzle had been attached presumably.

          • Capella

            It fits over the top and uses a pump action to produce a spray at the end of the long nozzle. But it’s ,messy and you get liquid everywhere. Not something you’d want to use with the world’s deadliest nerve poison.

    • N_

      Why believe that Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley were poisoned by the contents of a perfume bottle that one of them found? Two ways of poisoning them come to mind straightaway: through the medical-pharmacological system (hospital, GP, perhaps a drug dependency unit, Boots), and through the illegal drugs network which is a classic area of intertwining (among many others) between organised crime and the state.

      Then plant the perfume bottle in the room, blah blah…possibly some detailed message is being sent to certain target markets here…

      And anyway, everything is asked about the perfume bottle except obvious questions such as what does the batch number on it indicate about its place of sale. If it was Russia, wouldn’t we have been told by now?

      People need to get a bird’s eye view.

      The British state released stills and film clips and used them in a propaganda campaign against the Russian state and in particular against its alleged secret and denied actions involving chemical weapons: FACT.

      Russia predicts a dishonestly-attributed chemical attack in Syria: FACT.

      The last time they did, it happened and it was used as a pretext for a western attack: FACT.

    • Max_B

      I’ve watched a person drive up to public litter bin next to a bus stop overlooked by a flat where I used to live, and drop a bulky manilla wrapped object into the bin. A few minutes later, another car draws up, guy gets out, and removes manilla object from bin and drives off.

    • uncle tungsten

      The reason you would put that bottle in the charity bin would be to send the authorities a message that you were getting impatient with them delivering on your demands and here is a hurry up signal.

  • Borncynical

    With regard to latest events in Syria I am posting this disturbing link about plans for a false flag chemical in Idlib. Sounds like they’re going all out to make this a ‘biggie’. The link came via the OffGuardian Twitter feed.
    https://sana.sy/en/?p=146450

    • N_

      Many thanks for this, @Borncynical – this is very highly relevant to where we are now.

      SANA is the Syrian government news agency.

      More information is surfacing about terrorists and the ‘White Helmets’ preparing to stage a new chemical incident to lay the blame on the Syrian Arab Army and elicit a Western aggression on Syria.

      Several media and local sources have reported that the White Helmets have transported shipments of chlorine gas and sarin gas to three areas in the northern countryside of Idleb and Hama provinces, in addition to abducting dozens of children and taking them to an unknown location.

      (…)

      The sources say that the White Helmets have picked three new locations for carrying out the attacks after information was leaked about the previously-planned locations, and the three locations are: al-Najia town in Jisr al-Shughour countryside, al-Hamawsh town in the northwestern countryside of Hama, and Kafr Nubbul town in Idleb countryside.

      The sources affirmed that sarin gas and chlorine gas shipments have been transported to these three areas, and that dozens of children ages two to ten who had been abducted recently from a camp near Salqin now were transported from Jisr al-Shughour to an unknown location.

      The sources suggest that it’s likely that the White Helmets and the armed groups will carry out a real massacre this time to avoid the inconsistencies that surfaced in the staged chemical incident in Douma.

      We are in a kind of limbo period now: unlike in March when the first propaganda was issued in relation to Salisbury, no specific sanctions have been announced against Russia this time, either by the poshboy British regime or its foreign backers and associates. The indication is that a further big chemical (or possibly biological) event blamed on Russia will occur, complete with pictures and film that are much more emotionally arresting than the ones that showed a couple of burly lads at an airport, a railway station, and walking along the street.

      • Borncynical

        Thanks, N_, for the transcription. Another link with further commentary published on the OffGuardian website today:
        news-syria-russia-accuse-u-s-coalition-white-helmets-of-preparing-chemical-weapons-attacks-in-idlib/
        This mentions, slightly ambiguously, that it is intended to carry out [or have ready] the false flag BY 13 September. My head is whirling so much from reading various web articles, blogs and commentaries on this and reports on RT that I can’t recall where I saw also an official reference to the ‘stagers’ being instructed to be ready by close on 8 September to act immediately on receiving instruction from Western intelligence organisations.

  • Sohail

    Have to ask if the story is being manipulated with respect to events in the middle east. I don’t see a new barrage of anti Russian press at the same time as the stand-off :

    in Syria

    https://southfront.org/us-officially-admints-its-not-going-to-withdraw-forces-from-syria/

    in Iraq ( read up on the formation of a new government, on who is behind the rioting)

    in the “deal of the century” for the “disputed territories”, counterview at

    https://www.jonathan-cook.net/2018-06-15/trump-deal-century-peace-plan/

    as coincidence.

    Ugly for UK to be drawn into the mixture by using the Skripal event, whoever or whatever was behind it.

  • mog

    Read this great little summary of the GLADIO conspiracy,
    ’27 years ago..the European Parliament passed a resolution on the ‘Gladio Affair’, documenting ‘the existence for 40 years of a clandestine intelligence and armed operations organization’ that had ‘eluded all democratic controls’ and ‘operated and continue to operate completely outside the law… thereby jeopardizing the democratic structures of the countries in which they are operating’ as ‘military secret services (or uncontrolled branches thereof) were involved in serious cases of terrorism and crime’.
    https://medium.com/@tomsecker/gladio-revisited-state-sponsored-terrorism-in-the-mono-polar-world-order-ef0a8a68432b
    Unless or until long running and massive crimes which clearly span several states, are investigated and then justice served, why should we believe anything our intelligence services or our governments tell us at all ?

    • Moocho

      I don’t believe anything they say, they are proven, habitual liars, so only a stupid idiot would trust them. Based on everything I have learned about them in my life, I view them merely as highly intelligent but very powerful criminals. The most ruthless, craziest and insane people get to the top. No-one can stop them, they are totally out of control with the most powerful institutions in the world at their disposal

      • Moocho

        I will add that the one thing they desperately need for them to get away with their endless criminality is consent/ignorance from the public. hello the controlled, there to brainwash mainstream media and increasing internet cencorship

        • Herbie

          Rather than lies, it’s probably better to think of them as serving up dramas for our distraction. Peeps root for this or that actor in the drama, just as in Sports or a soap opera.

          All the while they’re getting on with their real business behind the scenes.

          They’re remaking the world right before our eyes, but peeps think it’s some sort of fight between goodies and baddies, and urging their choice of “goodies” on.

          • Moocho

            No, they are liars and criminals. They lie to cover up their crimes, the primary tool for spreading their lies is the mainstream media

          • Herbie

            Well, yes, dramas do tend to be fictions, and yes again, most would think them criminals.

            But still, important to understand precisely the methodology at work.

            It’s a bit more complex than straight-out lies.

            These would not have sustained them so well for so long.

  • Tom Smythe

    Weird, nobody here reads the papers? Two very significant new bits of information emerged today:

    Telegraph: ‘Intelligence agencies are investigating a series of trips by two Russian hitmen to Geneva prior to carrying out the nerve agent attack on Salisbury. Flight ticket details obtained by the Telegraph show Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov made at least six separate trips to the Swiss city [prior to March 2018 UK visit].

    Records show they booked 9 separate flights to and from Geneva between November 2017 and February this year. Whitehall sources said establishing who they met in Geneva was now “absolutely key to the ongoing investigation’.

    In total the men booked almost 30 flights in and out of Moscow, mainly on Aeroflot, the Russian state carrier, but also used on one occasion Air France, KLM and a Russian budget airline from Moscow to Bergamo in Italy. The volume of flights as well as [unknown] accommodation costs in Geneva, Paris and Amsterdam suggest their missions were well-funded.

    The article doesn’t say whether Geneva was their final destination nor how long they stayed nor where. Are flight manifests on searchable online databases or was the Telegram given this by MI6? No idea. I’ve deleted various bits of unsupported article nonsense.

    These trips may partially overlap with an extensive series of trips to various Euro cities, mainly Paris, reported earlier by Fontanka. All on the same two-year old passports used on the UK trip. I am not aware of 30 assassinations timed with these trips, indeed not a single one. It fits much better with courier as Mary P suggested above. But courier of what? No reports of novichok use at any of the destinations.

    NYTimes: they reassigned their ingenuous snowflake and got some original reporting:

    ‘Sergei V. Skripal, the former Russian spy poisoned in Britain with a powerful nerve agent, appears to have been working in recent years with intelligence officers in Spain, a country locked in a pitched battle with Russian organized crime groups, some with ties to the Russian government.

    Rather than living an isolated life in retirement, Mr. Skripal continued to provide briefings to spies in the Czech Republic and Estonia. Now, it appears he was also active in Spain.

    The revelation adds another striking parallel between Mr. Skripal and another former Russian intelligence operative, Alexander Litvinenko, who died in London in 2006 after being poisoned by polonium. The Spanish authorities have acknowledged enlisting Mr. Litvinenko in a campaign against Russian organized crime figures in Spain.

    Mr. Skripal has a long history in Spain. As a colonel in Russia’s military intelligence agency, he was posted in Madrid in the mid-1990s as a military attaché at the Russian embassy where he was recruited by Pablo Miller of MI6, now a neighbor in Salisbury.

    But in recent years, Mr. Skripal returned to Spain for several meetings with officers from its intelligence service, CNI, though the content and precise timing of those meetings are classified, according to the senior Spanish official and the Spanish author, Fernando Rueda…

    The British investigation suggests that the poisoning was carried out as an act of retribution by Mr. Skripal’s former colleagues. But retribution for what, exactly?

    The motive remains elusive. Was it a purely symbolic attack, a warning to other Russian operatives to remain loyal? Or did Mr. Skripal do something specific to anger his former comrades?

    Mr. Skripal traveled to Prague in 2012 where he spent a boozy lunch with Czech intelligence officers. And he went to the Estonian capital, Tallinn, in 2016 to brief local spies. On each of the trips, which were organized and approved by MI6, he shared insights into Russian spycraft. Such visits would not have been illegal, nor are they uncommon for former spies trying to remain useful.

    Still, Spain is a special case. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Spain has been a haven for Russian crime bosses and corrupt officials. Mr. Skripal’s continued visits to Spain were confirmed by a current senior official, who would not provide additional details.

    But former officials said that Mr. Skripal would have been especially useful in crackdowns on Russian organized crime. “From the beginning we had a big problem,” said a retired Spanish police chief, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential investigations. “We ignored the Russian phenomenon and its organized crime. We didn’t know how they operated. Skripal, Litvinenko,” he said, “they gave a more accurate idea of the reality.”

    Spanish prosecutors and police investigators have acknowledged working with Mr. Litvinenko, an expert in Russian organized crime who fled to England after publicly falling out with Vladimir V. Putin when he was director of the Federal Security Service.

    At the British inquest into Mr. Litvinenko’s death, his family’s lawyer claimed that he was also a paid agent of the Spanish intelligence agency and had planned to travel to Spain to hand over evidence about possible links between the Kremlin and Russian organized crime figures. He was killed before he could make the trip.

    Officials would not say whether Mr. Skripal was involved in similar work or, as in Estonia and the Czech Republic, was simply giving lectures to Spanish spies.

    • Tom Smythe

      RT has some good analysis of the NYTimes piece:

      The NYTimes is backing off from Putin wot dun it, going more indirectlu with this could be the work of corrupt oligarchs or corrupt businessmen with links to the Kremlin. The reporters simply parrot the claim that the duo are career GRU whereas their identities and nationalities haven’t even been established. They could equally be freelancers reporting to whoever is paying them. RT does better on this than the NYT, below:

      “Annie Machon, a former MI5 intelligence officer, noted that despite insinuations from the New York Times, there’s “no evidence whatsoever as far as I can see” linking the Russian government to the Skripal case.

      “We have a narrative of evidence that will never be tried forensically in court. So we will never know the truth, and there are some big holes in that evidential chain,” Machon said, adding that it appears that the tenuous Kremlin links are instead being tried in the court of public opinion. Without a without a public inquiry, nobody really knows who is behind the attack. And this is the problem with the stuff that’s been put out in public.

      ‘If the aim was to punish [Skripal] for betraying Russia, he could have been killed in a Russian prison. And there certainly wouldn’t have been an attempt to take his life right before the World Cup started, knowing that this would add rocket fuel to the anti-Russia hysteria.

      “We’ll never solve this mystery until we know exactly how Sergei Skripal was earning a living, or had been earning a living in the last few years. That’s a key point. Who was he working for? Where was he getting money from? Was he working for oligarchs? Was he working for British security services, getting paid by them? Was he working for other countries? We don’t know. That for me is the most important point.

      “I can’t see the motive for the Russian state getting involved. The motive will come from what he was working on over the last eight years in the UK,” Machon said. She drew attention to reports that Skripal had a business relationship with Christoper Steele, the ex-British spy responsible for compiling the infamous Trump dossier, noting that this could be an interesting aspect of the case to explore.

      “One of the key things that the police and investigators need to look at is the motive of why he might have been attacked at this particular time. Because he had been caught, convicted, put in prison and released in Russia.”

      “We’ll never solve this mystery until we know exactly how Sergei Skripal was earning a living, or had been earning a living in the last few years. That’s a key point. Who was he working for? Where was he getting money from? Was he working for oligarchs? Was he working for British security services, getting paid by them? Was he working for other countries? We don’t know. That for me is the most important point. “I can’t see the motive for the Russian state getting involved. The motive will come from what he was working on over the last eight years in the UK”

      • Tom Smythe

        I hadn’t realized that Spain was becoming another Oligarchia (as Cyprus and London have already). These countries see all the stolen money coming in and think, ‘they will assimilate into our society, the money will be spent here on yachts and mansions, capital will trickle down to our citizens and benefit the economy.’ What happens instead is hot money utterly corrupts the society, amounting to a takeover from within (while retaining strong ties to the motherland).

        In some ways, it reminds me of the aftermath of WWI, let’s bankrupt the Germans with reparations. That got us the Weimar Republic, Hitler and WWII. Let’s bankrupt the Soviet Union and encourage a mad scramble to steal the assets. What are we getting for that? Blow-back and unforeseen consequences.

        • MaryPaul

          You and I appear to be thinking along similar lines Tom S. 🙂 I was not aware of big problems in Spain with Russian criminal Interests. (OH takes the Times which has not had any new information). How do they get into Spain? as wealthy “retirees” or “businessmen” no questions asked?

          The thing which surprises me is, if they are working against Russian interests, why has Russia not taken this opportunity to denounce them?

    • Olaf S

      ““From the beginning we had a big problem,” said a retired Spanish police chief, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential investigations. “We ignored the Russian phenomenon and its organized crime. We didn’t know how they operated. Skripal, Litvinenko,” he said, “they gave a more accurate idea of the reality.”

      LItvinenko and Skripal heroic fighters against organized crime? Condition of anonymity?. NYTimes? A typical CIA product if you ask me. Correct in some details, of course, but very tendentious in others. (Not unlike “Pravda” in the old Soviet days)..

      • Tom Smythe

        Right, the NYTimes normally develops very little information on its own but simply conduits officially authorized leaks from the deep state agencies, the other day even giving anonymous editorial space to the “Resistance” within the Trump admin. Here it was slightly different, a Spanish intelligence agency and their usual conduit giving limited information to a Spanish reporter for the Times. It’s conceivable the US half of the reporter team ran it by the CIA for comment or approval (Gina Haspell !?!).

        If so, the US is has decided to bail on the British nonsense, figuring the narrative will unravel very quickly. While the US was the very worst in kicking out diplomats under what they knew all along were false pretenses, they can blame it all for taking PM May at her word. There is little interest today in Britain as ally, just nostalgia among elderly soldiers. Millennials have no idea who Churchill was (or George Washington for that matter).

        The Russian state has also known all along what actually happened. They’ve let it play out, letting the British make complete asses out of themselves. I would guess everybody there at the higher levels has kompromat on each other. It is not just Trump they have over a barrel.

        Blow-back and unforeseen consequences: means organized crime operating with impunity, killing off all in their path who dared inform on them, like Skripal. I wondered earlier if he was being pressured, via threats to his only remaining child, to cease his activities, Or worse, disclose who on the Spanish crime side were moles informing to SNI. Indeed Skripal could have been their handler, being Russian himself and no saint in terms of corruption.

        I must say, this Spanish connection is the first thing that makes sense, given Sergei’s tenure there and deep prior connections with Spanish intelligence who were fully briefed on Pablo Miller and helped him with arrangements. Skripal does nothing with full prior approval from the UK. So they know perfectly well why Russian organized crime

        What exactly was Skripal tasked with at his embassy job as military attache? Ditto all those years in Malta. The Russian govt couldn’t care less about Spanish politics or military. (Do they even have one?) There is a lot of tourism there which provides cover for travel on spy business.

        • Mary Paul

          So are the Russian mobsters in Spain working for or against the interests of the Russian government and if against, why have they not been denounced by the Russians as recidivists?

  • Emily

    Please just take a look at the appalling ignorance and bigotry of the Conservative party supporters and members over this issue.
    I happened upon it as I was looking at various reactions and was shocked.
    There are 18 comments from this article on the incident, from Today’s Conservative Home, and you will see that the Labour party is not the only party with issues of hate.
    Comment after comment of hate Russia.
    Congratulating the police for a fine job and congratulating Theresa May .
    No evidence needed or given just pure venom and revenge dripping from every line.
    https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2018/09/the-authorities-deserve-credit-for-their-responsible-but-robust-handling-of-the-salisbury-atrocity.html#comments
    If thats the Tories….
    Thank God – I’m not one.

    • Garth Carthy

      “If that’s the Tories….
      Thank God – I’m not one.”

      If there really was a God, there wouldn’t be any Tories! (wink)

      • Herbie

        If God is the way, the truth, the light, and you say these things don’t exist, then you’ll get things like Tories instead.

  • Anon1

    It’ll be interesting to see what happens in Sweden tomorrow. One thing we already know, though, is that the left will continue to want to have it both ways. On the one hand they will want to continue to destroy a peaceful and tolerant country from within, on the other hand they will not want to see a backlash of right-wing sentiment that causes them to lose their grip. Well I’m afraid they can’t have it both ways, so best just to stop with the whole “let’s change Sweden into a third world country” thing, hmmkay? Best to spread the rotting out of a country over a few generations at least.

    • SA

      Anon 1
      You treat the right wing nutters as if they are the direct responsibility of the left. Could you please explain? For example couldn’t this backlash be orchestrated by right wing and capitalist vested interest for example?

    • Nick

      I think you’re talking about revolution and counter-revolution.

      I believe globalism will (eventually result in) result in authoritarianism. I’ve made my choice as imperfect as it is.

      • Herbie

        It’d probably be reasonable to conclude then, that they supported the Swedish Left all these years, and they’re now supporting the transition to the Right.

        As is much of Europe.

        It’s a very bulky and cumbersome thing a population.

        Left a bit. Right a bit.

        To you, to me, etc.

        There are deeper reasons why Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness were referred to in media as “The Chuckle Brothers” .

  • Paul Barbara

    @ Mary Paul September 7, 2018 at 00:53
    ‘I’ll just ask you two things: if you are not already fully aware of Rolan Dumas’ testimony (RD is a former French Foreign Minister) , please check these two links out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWKA2ffECUg
    and: ‘Former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas: West was preparing attack on Syria before crisis started’.
    They may help you understand why some of us appear ‘anti-Western’.
    All of this bloodshed, destruction and refugee crisis has been deliberately instigated by the West in order to change the government of Syria.
    For good measure, check this very short video our as well, which shows the plan was in place at least as early as 2001:
    ‘The Plan — according to U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.)’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXS3vW47mOE
    Clark used to be the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, so he’s not small beer.
    Do you believe the West has the right to overthrow any governments it chooses, under any pretext it conjures up?’

    I asked yoy this some days ago, but you don’t seem to have replied. I’ll try again.

    • Node

      Clark used to be the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, so he’s not small beer.

      …. or how about Admiral Lord West, (First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from 2002 to 2006, three years as head of naval intelligence, Chief of Defence Intelligence, etc), who believes Syrian chemical attacks were false flags, fabricated by the White Helmets.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foj29LIXpy4

    • Mary Paul

      I believe all sorts of things about the actions of the West in the Middle East and their motivation but I do not believe that the British government has deliberately poisoned people living in Salisbury, twice in six months, using a banned nerve agent with all the disruption, deceit and clean up involved, to divert the public’s attention from what is happening in Syria. After all, the first thing they did was to place everything related to it under a D notice which had the effect of putting all reports under a news blackout, which is scarcely publicizing it to take UK citizens minds off Syria.

  • Reg

    How do we know they are even Russian never mind GRU agents given the Police statement was that they were probably false passports?
    If you are going to fake a passport why a Russian one if you are a GRU operative? We have no idea who they are working for (if anybody) not everybody flying from Russia is Russian and it could of been a transit point coming from a different origin under a different false passport to implicate Russia. Why would any Russian agent fly directly from Russia on a fake Russian passport, and not from an intermediate state to avoid raising suspicions on a false passport from a neutral country?

    • Borncynical

      Really, Reg, do you not get it? They ARE Russian and they ARE GRU operatives. And how do I know? Because Theresa told us so.
      I’m just joking of course. But, being serious, your comments make perfect sense…but seemingly not to those in the PTB.

  • Republicofscotland

    Chuka having a go at Corbyn.

    “Former frontbench MP Chuka Umunna has implored Jeremy Corbyn to “call off the dogs” trying to drive centre-left MPs out of Labour.”

    “The Streatham MP made the comments after leading pro-Israel MP claimed so-called moderates faced a “clear and present danger” of being run out of the party by hard-left factions.”

    “Mr Umunna’s comments came after leading pro-Israel MP Joan Ryan and Luton South MP Gavin Shuker lost no-confidence votes among local party members.”

    If any of the Labour cohorts should be called dogs, it’s the Israel backing Blairites.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chuka-umunna-jeremy-corbyn-call-off-dogs-centrist-moderate-hard-left-a8528136.html

  • Twostime

    Apologies if already posted people but are you ready for Douma 2.0? Remember those moderate rebels holed up in Idlib https://youtu.be/IwbJrL96zlI. Well there’s just a wee chance the dastardly Syrian government against all sense and contrary to Douma 1.0 are about to unleash chemical hell again – not – on Idlib . This will of course require FRUKUSIS to bomb Syria . Perhaps the rapture is something me and my kids just failled to look forward too?

      • Twostime

        Let’s not mention Nicaragua. Any one else recall Iran Contra quite topical now. Just relax and bow to american imperialism.

        • Paul Barbara

          @ Twostime September 8, 2018 at 18:50
          I visited Nicaragua for three and a half months in 1984, during the Contra ‘war’, to see things for myself.
          I was an active campaigner with Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign.

    • Borncynical

      @Twostime – Douma x 10 by the sound of it. I’ve posted a couple of links a little way above, with helpful input from contributor @N_, which you may like to read if you really want to depress yourself.

  • Sven Lystbak

    Sorry if this has been touched upon in prior comments but it seems there are quite strict requirements for UK visa and passportphotoes: https://www.gov.uk/photos-for-passports/photo-requirements
    Specificly the background colour has to be either cream or light grey. As the two published pictures of the faces of the suspects don’t meet the requirements and are quite murky it raises the question why the photoes of the visa application have not been released.

    • Tom Smythe

      Yes and that ties into the ’65-type’ non-biometric passports the two had and the UK’s refusal to provide fingerprints to Interpol or anybody else. More questions than answers. I fail to see how this serves UK interests: when you hold the cards in poker, you put them face up on the table.

      Reminder to all the people frantically trolling the forum with off-topic stuff: Craig Murray sets the topic here. That’s worth repeating: Craig Murray sets the topic here.

      While there can be no doubt that you and your group alone knows where the High Moral Ground is to be found, might it not be better shared on a separate free blogging site that you and your group alone administer?

      • Mary Paul

        Are you suggesting they did not have the latest passports and got through on earlier less stringent requirements?

        • Tom Smythe

          No idea what Russian passport options were or are. I am just going by a Fontanka news agency translation.

      • Sven Lystbak

        The published photos are clearly not plain light coloured as required. You can check out what they should look like via the above link.

        • N_

          The only requirement you mentioned was that the background colour had to be either cream or light grey. It is lightish grey. If there’s a requirement that you think the photos don’t meet, please say what it is, rather than directing us all to a web link.

  • Alyson

    Okay so I am going to repeat myself. I deduce that a bottle of perfume, new, in sellophane wrapper, was given to Julia by the courteous couriers. I deduce that the bottle was in a vacuum sealed bag like those used to carry on small items onto aeroplanes by all of us at one time or another. I deduce that the box was removed from its bag and handed to Julia, who handled it after the men left, and then became ill. I suggest that either she threw it into a bin, or more likely, the police officer threw it into a nearby bin, perhaps after asking Julia if she wanted it, or because it was left behind when they went in the ambulance. I speculate that the police officer then went to their house and touched the door handle. I speculate that the operatives were contaminated in the handover and so left traces everywhere they went after leaving the Skripals. This would fit with Dawn and Rowley finding an unopened bottle of perfume, still boxed, in a bin or in the ground. I suspect that Rowley washed his hands because there was an oily substance on the box, but maybe Dawn washed the box in her bathroom and opened the sellophane wrapping to access the perfume, which was in all likelihood an ordinary bottle of perfume. Doctors gave her an injection of anti-D assuming she had taken a heroin overdose, when in fact she had merely picked up a discarded unopened bottle of boxed perfume. If the operatives left traces of novichok everywhere they went, next step is to follow their steps after they left the hotel, to whichever plane they caught to whichever destination

    • Twostime

      Alyson, Its all clearly bullshit. Let it go and perhaps focus on the other shit that is going down ? Syria – nearly over until the whiteshitmets provide a provocasion for potentially ww3. Ffs people this is more than a tad serious – China’s getting involved now, are we all consenting to bombing both Russian and Chinese troops in Syria? (obviously most of these people aren’t white so probably that’s ok?) People wake up.

      • Alyson

        Okay. You go. Craig may put up a post about the expected false flag event in Idlib. Bye for now

      • Borncynical

        As is par for the course, I have just seen video footage of a “makeshift hospital” in Idlib badly damaged by the SAA bombardment of rebel positions on Idlib – no doubt it’s one of the hundreds of hospitals that will feature in coming days. It was reported this time that “luckily nobody was injured”. No doubt because instructions hadn’t been issued yet by their mentors in western intelligence organisations to include some victims – just a ‘taster’ to warm up western media.

        • Borncynical

          Sorry, further to my post at 22.16, I meant to specify that the report about the hospital damage was on BBC News… where else? No doubt it’s featured on the other MSM news reports as well.

    • Alyson

      The police officer would have had a duty of care, to check their house was secure, ie doors locked etc, because both of them were incapacitated. It would be a reason for him to touch the door knob, leaving a trace of novichok on it if he had handled the box of perfume. Just speculating and hypothesising here. Dawn was unfortunate to have been classified as someone who might take heroin, just because she and her partner enjoyed an occasional drink. There would have been no reason to connect her condition with the Skripal’s if the perfume box was not known about

      • N_

        What are you talking about, @Alyson? If someone falls ill in a public place, the police don’t go round their house and check their doors and windows. And half the country, or more, have an occasional drink without getting classified as possible heroin users.

      • Tom Smythe

        Dawn was a hard-core alcoholic for 20 years who abandoned three young children. She was not a heroin injector by all accounts, may have smoked some. Salisbury is a small town: she was well-known to the constabulary and hospital A&E. As was Charlie, a convicted small-time registered heroin addict & convicted dealer. They were working through some personal problems, not bothering anybody, had a lot of supportive friends. No one here can pass judgement on them.

      • Tom Smythe

        They made over 30 trips to 10 countries in 2 years. We have no idea what they brought along on any of them. Might simply have been a verbal order from the boss. A very large cheque or authorization. A warning. Intimidation. Documents too dangerous to mail. Couriers often go in pairs. Risk management: robbery, muggings. Shooting the messenger is problematic when a second has dropped back. Witnessing: not he said, she said, you misunderstood.

        • N_

          I was addressing the idea that they were couriering something to or from Salisbury, not the time when they carried a fridge to Geneva or delivered a large drug consignment somewhere. Turning up as a pair to deliver a warning in an intimidatory way, also known as putting the frighteners on someone, isn’t couriering. As for being available later to get debriefed on how the couriering went, with corroboration, I think we’re talking about different kinds of couriering. In what I was thinking of, ideally a courier knows nobody who’s involved with whatever operation they’re couriering for; they may well think they’re working for a party that’s different from, or fighting against, the party they’re really working for; and what they do is collect something from one drop and take it to another, having taken proper precautions to ensure they’re not being watched at either drop or being followed. If it’s small enough to be carried by one person, you don’t use more than one person.

  • Esther

    If you follow the logic that their phones were switched off since since leaving their home and the dubious duo arriving at 11.48 to meet them then why did they switch them off so early? A gap of around 2.5 hours. Did they meet other people? Where were they? – and where are they now

    • Mary Paul

      We have no proof their phones were off, and they were untrackable other than official statements. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Sergei Skripal had to use a phone which had been modified to include a permanent location beacon signalling his whereabouts

      • Paul Barbara

        @ Mary Paul September 7, 2018 at 00:53
        ‘I’ll just ask you two things: if you are not already fully aware of Rolan Dumas’ testimony (RD is a former French Foreign Minister) , please check these two links out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWKA2ffECUg
        and: ‘Former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas: West was preparing attack on Syria before crisis started’.
        They may help you understand why some of us appear ‘anti-Western’.
        All of this bloodshed, destruction and refugee crisis has been deliberately instigated by the West in order to change the government of Syria.
        For good measure, check this very short video our as well, which shows the plan was in place at least as early as 2001:
        ‘The Plan — according to U.S. General Wesley Clark (Ret.)’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXS3vW47mOE
        Clark used to be the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, so he’s not small beer.
        Do you believe the West has the right to overthrow any governments it chooses, under any pretext it conjures up?’

        I asked you this a day or two ago, but you don’t seem to have replied. I’ll try again.

      • N_

        It’s reasonable to think Sergei Skripal had some kind of proper security that wasn’t just a crappy Eurolock on his front door.

  • N_

    Source: Sputnik News.

    Russian defence ministry spokesman Maj-Gen Igor Konashenkov said TODAY that preparations in Idlib for a chemical provocation are almost complete.

    He says Al Nusra Front, Turkestan Islamic Movement and White Helmets met yesterday to coordinate and they agreed on details, for full readiness by THIS EVENING, 8 September.

    • Herbie

      I suppose all those Russian ships now drilling in the Med are to deter, at least a NATO assault, if not the false flag itself.

      Then there’s the shutting down of Syrian official channels to the public thru Twitter.

      We’ll know soon enough.

    • Borncynical

      N_ , Yes, as you say, they have been instructed to be ready to act when given the green light anytime as from tonight. I apologise as I alluded to this in a post I submitted a short while ago further up the thread not realising you’d already confirmed it here. But at least you have confirmed for me that I wasn’t imagining I’d read it! Thanks for that.

  • Twostime

    Meanwhile in the real world, the real children, parents, grandparents in Syria are looking forward to peace In their land after the west’s regime change holocaust has been stopped. And you’re all discussing chovinock bullshit. Move on people to the real humanitarian crisis. PLEASE.

    • Rhys Jaggar

      I am not sure they are, although certain regions have been liberated. US and Israel are still being trouble makers…..

      • Twostime

        Rhys, any humanitarian view more than welcome. Otherwise like most of this blog just tangential noise.

  • Alyson

    Okay. Idlib. 3.5 million civilians. 10,000 head choppers, slavers and assorted rebels funded by – well we know don’t we – and Turkey already has 3 million refugees. Assad has invited support from Russia and Iran and he is allowed to do this. The original protests against Assad’s treatment of this half of Syria were not supported, and Al Nusra was established to move in and take control on behalf of – well we know don’t we – but Syria is returning to normal in the places where rebels have been routed. Two pipelines. Dollar hegemony. Sanctions. Complicated. Whatever the next move is – no. Just no. The only safe solution is to allow the Al Nusra rebels to leave safely, to just go home.

    • Twostime

      Alyson, “no just no” what are you saying here? I’d rather the wahabist foreign nutters in Syria were just locked up. Pretty keen we don’t have to import these fundamentalist freeks. Is that ok with you?

    • Borncynical

      Alyson
      “allow the al Nusra rebels [I think ‘terrorists’ is more appropriate but that’s a minor point] to leave safely”. You’re missing one fundamental point here. For how many weeks did the Syrian Government offer the ‘rebels’ (numbering among them al Qaeda AND ISIS jihadis) in Idlib amnesties to leave Idlib peacefully – as they did with all the other cities and territories eventually liberated? In past confrontational situations many ‘rebels’ took up the offer. Civilians who want nothing to do with the terrorists have been escaping (against the will of the terrorists) via humanitarian corridors set up by the Syrians and Russians since 31 July, although this hasn’t been reported on the MSM. The fact is these terrorists are on the payroll of western neocons and do whatever is their bidding. They’re not the sort of people who cross multiple countries to fight in Syria for some purpose known to them (who knows what they’ve been offered in return?) only to surrender. That is my point – they don’t WANT to surrender so are the Syrian and Russian forces supposed to sit back and let the terrorists carry on killing, abusing and exploiting ad infinitum the remaining civilians in Idlib who don’t support them and are effectively captive there? Syria is a sovereign country and, aided by Russia and other allies, they are not prepared to be held to ransom by the western neocons and their proxy army even if that risks a full-blown reaction from the US, UK and France. I do not see that they have much choice.
      https://off-guardian.org/2018/09/08/news-syria-russia-accuse-u-s-coalition-white-helmets-of-preparing-chemical-weapons-attacks-in-idlib/

      • giyane

        Borncynical
        “The fact is these terrorists are on the payroll of western neocons and do whatever is their bidding”

        Actually the fact is these terrorists have been torture-rendition-brain-washed by the western neocons and cannot fit in anywhere else except a country at war.

  • Blunderbuss

    If World War 3 is about to start, there is nothing we can do about it so I intend to go on writing about the Skripals. This page is headed “Skripals – The Mystery Deepens” after all.

      • Blunderbuss

        You could try hiding under the table. That is the official advice in case of nuclear war.

        • Twostime

          Any real news or information on this chovinock shit yet? I’m not under a table. Any thoughts regarding the victims of the War of terror? Millions dead so far but, whatever…

        • George

          I thought the official advice in case of nuclear war was to put a bag over your head? It makes sense since it would make your eyeballs fry faster.

          • George

            My comment was highly relevant to Blunderbuss’s. If you’re so concerned about WW3 starting then what advice do YOU have?

          • Borncynical

            George (22.09) – but you have to admit that there are a lot of people spending an awful lot of time on here theorising about what may or may not be the circumstances of the Skripal case and, frankly, not seeing the wood for the trees. The simple fact is the Government is lying to us over the Skripals and there is little we as individuals can do about it. But human nature encourages anyone with an ability to think for themselves to discuss and debate their thoughts with others. I personally am more than happy to contribute to discussions on why the facts presented to us are unsupportable but I do think too much time is devoted to coming up with alternative scenarios, albeit plausible. Likewise the Government is lying to us over Syria and there is little we can do about it as individuals but, again, for the reasons I have recently posted it is constructive to encourage exchanges on the issue rather than censoring such comments – which is effectively what you are endorsing.
            p.s. I’m not having a go at you personally. It’s getting late, I’m tired and I just used your post as a vague opportunity to express my general thoughts in support of @Twostime. Feel free to have a go at me!

          • George

            Thank you Borncynical. I apologise for my facetiousness. I just wandered into the argument and saw that bit about hiding under a table and added a thoroughly trivial remark. As to the Skripal case – I smelt bullshit from the start especially when I noticed that this poisoning morphed into a “chemical attack” which then morphed into a “nerve agent attack on a city” (!)

            But then ever since GWB made noises about attacking Iraq I thought WTF? From then on I realised the media was utter shit. I also realised that I had “realised” it before but it hadn’t really sunk in – and there lies one of the sneaky manoeuvres of our propaganda system: it encourages everyone to sneer but everyone believes it anyway.

            Anyway the Iraq matter was very revealing for the way the system works. The big knobs really don’t five a fuck what anyone thinks. They just shovel out the shit. And they keep on shovelling it out till everyone wearily shrugs and then they carry on with the original plan. And – yes, I know what you’re going to say: making jokes about nuclear attack is just wearily shrugging. I plead guilty.

          • Borncynical

            @George (9.48)
            Thanks for your comments which I wholeheartedly agree with.
            Retaining a sense of humour can indeed get us through the most trying of times! Keep smiling!
            Cheers.

        • N_

          Talking of those “Protect and Survive” films from the 1980s (which are online, and which do indeed advise people to hide under tables), didn’t the British government say it was going to release another lot of advice documents about “preparing for a hard Brexit”? Perhaps they will publish them very close in time to the reporting of whatever happens in Idlib?

      • Blunderbuss

        But if the two men with Russian names were spotters rather than poisoners, why send them all the way from Russia? Surely the Russians have plenty of spies in England who could have done it. Perhaps Laurel and Hardy were just there to advertise themselves on CCTV and distract attention from the real culprits.

        • Blunderbuss

          There is also the possibility that the Russians/Ukrainians/(enter your favourite enemy) have someone working at Porton Down. I know their spokesman said it was absolutely impossible to smuggle anything out of Porton Down but the impossible is sometimes possible.

      • Doodlebug

        “I found a blog (which I’ve now lost) suggesting that these two were the poisoners.”

        Perhaps you should try finding it again. the Daily Shocker blog pays some attention to the statement of eye-witness Freya Church, which appears to confirm the couple in question were in the immediate vicinity, if not actually occupying the bench at the time. Another angle on this subject would be helpful therefore.

        • N_

          Where is the raw audio available from which the Daily Shocker’s contact took what Freya Church was saying under the voiceover at the beginning? It’s not at the gettyimages.co.uk link they give. The words “it ends” may refer to the video of the woman with the red bag and her companion, but do they? Also has the film of Freya Church leaving the Snap fitness centre at 4.03pm, 16 minutes after the said couple walked past, been published? Could she have had eye contact with the two at 3.47pm?

          Sergei Skripal’s hand movements and looking up are important I think, other than the hand movements being symptoms of taking a substance the name of which I forget.

          I am not convinced by the Daily Shocker’s argument that the said couple hung around for that long, but there again there is the matter of the red bag by the bench and the lack of public identification of the “blonde woman” and her companion.

          • Doodlebug

            I don’t know about the raw audio. I had some trouble finding the video (missing from the Sun page it seems, along with other images) although I got there eventually. Foolishly I didn’t make a note of the link, but there are indeed words of conversation between Freya Church and the on-site reporter, which are ‘voiced over’, deliberately or otherwise, before her piece to camera. I hesitate to suggest that these include the suspect phrase ‘it ends’ but, as I understand it, the mystery couple had already walked past the CCTV camera in question before FC had emerged from the fitness centre, ergo her looking them in the eye could not have occurred in that same esplanade but as FC was approaching the bench.

    • Twostime

      Skrypal is noise but repeat as much as you want. It doesn’t help the Syrians, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Iranians. OR any other targets of the blessed U S of fing A.

      • Tom Smythe

        Can you give us a few days break on this holier-than-thou crap?

        Start your own blog page, it’s free. Choose your own topics, don’t wait on Craig to come around. You don’t because it wouldn’t attract any visits. You’re here to parasitize off Craig’s star power. He chooses his topics, not yours. What part of “start your own blog” don’t you understand?

        The Skripals are not exactly Craig’s first foreign policy rodeo. That raises an interesting question: why 6-7 forum topics on them? Maybe because it is better to do one thing well and perhaps move the needle (or expose those who are).

        Yes, but I have a different theory. Craig is a historian, meaning this has never been about the Skripals. Rather, it is entirely about the Crimean War, in particular the Charge of the Light Brigade in the 1854 Battle of Balaclava, and whether the English can ever find closure on perceived Russian expansionism.

        “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre. C’est de la folie”. Just add a faux drapeau and you have a description of English blundering that could have been written yesterday.

          • Tom Smythe

            Not at all, you can and do add value to the topic at hand.

            The Skripal story alone is a full plate — it takes a village to follow it. It is easy to miss bits of news especially on the Russian language side but we have people here with the language skills. We have people here with full text subscription access. We have people here with chemistry and medical backgrounds. We have people here who can provide historical context. We have people here who can explain the English political subtext. We have people here posting great links like that Guardian opinion that I had not missed altogether.

            I think the Skripal business is winnable. That’s why I’m here. A collaboration has the best shot at unraveling it. In turn, that could perhaps roll back some of the damage. We simply cannot go on with this level of government depravity.

      • Borncynical

        Twostime – yes but the Skripal incident was an assault on a handful of people in BRITAIN. That’s why it’s important to write reams of theoretical stuff on hundreds of variations of what might have happened when we have no real idea. Who cares that it’s all related to what’s going on in Syria? Who cares that the US, UK and France are poised to unleash an illegal, murderous offensive against people who are trying to protect the shores of this country and the rest of Europe from the grip of Islamic jihadis? Who cares that thousands of swarthy looking, oddly dressed, uncivilised foreigners who are only good for having children (yes, that has been said to me by acquaintances) are likely to be massacred as a result of the biggest contrived travesty in history? Who cares that thousands of people across the globe could be wiped out as a consequence of the actions of psychopathic world leaders? Why try to post your views on here, where you like to think you have a readymade audience who aren’t going to call you a “troll”, when you could start from scratch and produce your own blog in a week or so and then try to get readers and contributors, in order to satisfy those on here who can’t multitask and prefer to debate irrelevant (to use one of their favourite words) trivialities. Who knows, with any luck you won’t have to bother because all communications will have been knocked out by some minor military bombardment of sorts? Come on, you’ve got to get your priorities right, Twotimes.
        Twotimes, seriously, if you’re not familiar with it, I recommend going to the OffGuardian website to express your views. They have a number of current and very thought provoking articles and receptive and illuminating discussion threads on the situation in Syria. Highly recommended.

    • Borncynical

      Blunderbuss – so I take it you don’t think that Skripals/Russia/Syria are all connected in the minds of our leaders?? OK , so in that case let’s not bother talking about something topical and extremely serious which is happening as I sit here typing this simply because Craig hasn’t got round to creating a thread on this subject. Let’s wait until, maybe Tuesday?, to start a discussion thread by which time we may already be embroiled in a major world conflict. OK, there’s nothing we can do about it as individuals but it’s still human nature for many of us to want to discuss these issues as they evolve if only to hope that some of our common sense might rub off on someone out there who has some influence. Long shot I know. It’s also extremely comforting to realise that there are many of us of one mind and we haven’t all succumbed to Government brainwashing or apathy.

  • Grundig

    In the absence of substantive facts, the subject innately clathrated by the integuments of an intentionally opaque secret world, any deep understanding of the events in Salisbury is needs impossible. I think this unavailability of truth is precisely what frustrates otherwise normal, rational folk into the fantastic conjecturing to be found on this blog and elsewhere. It is all getting a bit much.
    From the Welsh mathematician in the North Face bag, Litvinenko, Georgi Markov, via David Kelly, Berezovski, to the Skripals, this opacity militates against any grasp of “what was going on”, but the fascination is still there.
    In reality, the truth, if it ever does emerge is always disappointingly mundane. The thrill seems to be in anticipation of some far-reaching, juicy revelation about this secret world. It never comes, nor should it. Cold reality, almost by definition, is boring. When you understand a magic trick, the magic has gone. As I was reliably informed many years ago, the world of espionage “is not your James Bond”. It’s bloody mundane.

    When you read stuff like:
    “It is contrary to the laws of physics that two similar objects can fill the same temporal-spatial zone”
    you know it’s time to give up. That was in some rant in a previous blog on here. It is all so depressing. The guy was so desperate to get to the truth, and is evidently quite articulate, but I suppose, as Feynman said, if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t.

  • Sharp Ears

    No worries. The promenaders are in full voice singing Rule Britannia and waving their little replicas of the red, white and blue butchers’ apron. All is well in the empire’s capital.

      • Sharp Ears

        In that case I expect that you will be cheered to hear that the Girl Guides have done a deal with the British Army.

        Girl Guides defend controversial new deal with British army
        Petition launched after members claim partnership with military runs counter to the Guides’ peace ethos
        https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/08/girl-guides-sponsorship-army-protest

        Chimes nicely with the antics of this last night of the Proms – Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory to coincide with the centenary of the end of the WW1 mass slaughter. Earlier, Ms Jenkins sang ‘Keep the Home fires burning’.

        • Mochyn69

          The words of those WW1 songs are sickening, especially ‘Keep the home fires burning’.

          They were summoned from the hillside
          They were called in from the glen,
          And the country found them ready
          At the stirring call for men.
          Let no tears add to their hardships
          As the soldiers pass along,
          And although your heart is breaking
          Make it sing this cheery song

          Keep the Home Fires Burning,
          While your hearts are yearning,
          Though your lads are far away
          They dream of home.
          There’s a silver lining
          Through the dark clouds shining,
          Turn the dark cloud inside out
          ‘Til the boys come home.

          Overseas there came a pleading,
          “Help a nation in distress.”
          And we gave our glorious laddies
          Honour bade us do no less,
          For no gallant son of freedom
          To a tyrant’s yoke should bend,
          And a noble heart must answer
          To the sacred call of “Friend.”

          Keep the Home Fires Burning,
          While your hearts are yearning,
          Though your lads are far away
          They dream of home.
          There’s a silver lining
          Through the dark clouds shining,
          Turn the dark cloud inside out
          ‘Til the boys come home.

          Songwriters: Ivor Novello / Lena Guilbert Ford
          Keep the Home Fires Burning lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

          The war memorials of every town and village in Wales show just how many of the boys didn’t come home. Astonishing numbers of boys from fragile Welsh-speaking communities, many of which never really recovered.

          And if ever there was a “nation in distress” it is Wales.

          .

          • Alyson

            Thanks Mochyn – brought tears to my eyes. Yes – seriously. This is what no people wants to endure, anywhere, giving their best, with love, to protect those home fires and keep a home in the hillside safe to return to

    • Tom Smythe

      Yes but you’re helping bringing an end to it with posts like this?

      Look at the top of the page: this is a narrow community-of-interest trying to follow the Skripal story. You are here to disrupt it, a two-year old banging her spoon on the table. Come back when Craig picks a topic more to your liking. Or start your own forum site, it’s free.

    • Mochyn69

      Actually they’ve been waving their European Flags to their full throated renditions of Land and Soap and Water and that doggerel about Jerusalem’s dark satanic mills.

      Very weird.

      .

  • Sandra

    In a Mail article (14/03), written before the police had determined how/where the Skripals were poisoned, I think that there is an interesting negative, maybe two, regarding Sergei’s car being picked up by the Devizes pub’s CCTV, at 1.35pm, on the day they were poisoned. Yulia was not visible, although thought to be in the car, and Sergei’s face could not be seen, although a male driver, jacket, shirt and right hand were visible.
    At that time, the police were appealing for information about a ‘crucial missing 40 minutes’, in which they could not trace the Skripals’ whereabouts, from 1.00pm until 1.40pm, when they were picked up in Sainsbury’s car park.
    And l am surprised that there were only 40mins of their whereabouts unaccounted for, despite their phones being out of action. Also, it seems to me that the police were not prepared to presume that Yulia and Sergei were in the car during that time, as they appealed for witnesses who had seen them in the car before arriving at the car park:

    “They appealed for witnesses who may have seen the pair in the BMW 3-Series before they arrived at a Sainsbury’s car park in Salisbury at around 1.40pm on Sunday, March 4.
    It is not known what they did, or if they met anyone, during this time.
    The CCTV was seized today, and at least offers a small insight into the pair’s movements.
    Officers have had the painstaking task of trawling through hours of security footage for a glimpse of the BMW.
    The clip from the Devizes Inn shows the car travelling along the A360 Devizes Road to-wards the city centre where Sainsbury’s is situated.”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5501599/Had-poisoned-New-CCTV-shows-Sergei-Skripals-car.html

    • Blunderbuss

      Oh no, not more Novichok on door handles. Are there any door handles in Salisbury that are not laced with Novichok?

  • Mochyn69

    I do declare the dear old BBC is turning subversive.

    Friday’s Radio 4 New Quiz had the most spectacular demolition job of the official narrative under the item ‘Who’s Putin up with it?’ that would be perfectly at home in these hallowed columns here:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/p06kllk0

    And this evening’s Last Night of the BBC Proms, that annual orgy of faded imperial glory and bombast, was even weirder than usual with the Proms in the Park segments from the four ‘home nations’ being awash with mainly union jacks, very few Saltires from Glasgow, not a single Irish Tricolour from Belfast, and no flags at all from the very small crowd in Colwyn Bay, whilst the Albert Hall was an ocean of blue and gold European Union flags.

    How weird is that??

    **

    • Hatuey

      There literally wasn’t one joke or point made in that radio show that contradicted the official story. Not one.

      But there’s a lot of anxiety about Brexit in the middle classes. By and large, they are totally opposed to it. The UK middle classes for decades have defined their superiority in terms of their familiarity and comfort with European music, culture, art, food, etc. They’re no doubt wondering how they’ll underline their superiority in future.

      Funnily enough, though, I’m detecting in Scotland growing support for independence amongst middle class people generally, and I think it’s for these sort of pro-European reasons. There’s a good chance that will make a big difference in the next independence referendum, if there is a next referendum.

      • PasserBy

        I listened to it based on your recommendation that it would be perfectly at home here. Here’s what I heard – it supported the official narrative, didn’t question anything, and only attempted to mock the Russians. Not sure why you’d think it was the opposite. Perhaps you can quote some of it along with the time to prove your point? Or did you paste the wrong link? Genuinely curious.

    • Old Mark

      I spotted an Irish tricolour in the throng of Promenaders at the RAH, and the number of EU flags there came close to outnumbering the union flags.

      As you say, very weird- pre 9/11 (the Last Night in 2001 featured Promenaders waving the stars and stripes in large numbers, for pretty obvious reasons) it was almost exclusively union flags being raised aloft- this time, if you added the EU flags together with those of other nations, the union flag was barely in the lead of the flag wavers stakes.

    • Capella

      BBC security were allegedly confiscating Saltires at Glasgow Green although UJs were on sale and prominently displayed.

  • Blunderbuss

    Where was the “perfume” bottle between 4 March and 30 June 2018? Even in these days of austerity, I can’t imagine a rubbish bin not being emptied for 4 months. My guess is that somebody found it soon after 4 March and thought “This might be worth a bob or two” so he took it and tried to sell it. Nobody wanted to buy it so he just put it on a shelf and forgot about it. Then, in June, he got talking to Charlie in a pub and heard that Charlie was looking for a present for Dawn. “I’ve got just the thing” he said, and sold the bottle to Charlie. I have absolutely no evidence for this, but neither has the government, so I’m in good/bad company.

    • Blunderbuss

      Second theory. Charlie and Dawn witnessed the attack on the Skripals so they had to be silenced. Why the four month delay? Perhaps the poisoners were not immediately aware that C & D had been witnesses but became aware of it later. Again, I have absolutely no evidence. I’m just trying to explain the inexplicable.

    • Tom Smythe

      This is why Met has an unpaid intern scanning our posts to look for ideas, someone finding holding, then cleaning out their garage.. They can’t string together a narrative without accounting for the bottle. And there is this nagging feeling someone embedded has stayed behind. Basu has intimated they have new forensics on the packaging and bottle. But will the investigation be shelved, given it has achieved its purpose?

      I would like to know what was in Yulia’s red purse in terms of objects and contamination. DS Bailey, another silenced participant, may have gotten contaminated securing it. It did not go off with the rescue paramedics. Why are they hiding so much? That alone speaks volumes.

      • Blunderbuss

        “This is why Met has an unpaid intern scanning our posts to look for ideas”. I’m glad to hear it, but I think he/she should be paid the living wage.

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