I did not anticipate that an open public meeting in Salisbury itself would be 95% sceptical of the official Novichok hoax – but it was.
Thanks to UK Column for putting this on. I hope you find it enlightening – there is information which goes beyond my previous articles on the subject. In about a week there will also be a film of our tour of the key sites in Salisbury.
The video settings prevent me from embedding it but you can watch it here.
https://youtu.be/3K9jUOYsga0?t=1464
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A comment I made a while back that was ‘moderated’ but might now be allowed was: “who is the person in the picture taking the photo ?”
—
Mod: Here’s the comment that you posted off topic in the unrelated thread “UN Reform and Scottish Independence”, complete with the original moderation notice:
[ Mod: Off topic. However, you’re welcome to post the link in a relevant thread in the discussion forum. ]
—
Misleading article here about the Skripals in the daily mail. Apparently, the final whitewash is to be applied next month.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15294993/Novichok-Russian-spy-daughter-Putin-Salisbury-poisonings.html
Question
Can anyone identify the photographer reflected in the mirror in the picture ?
It wasn’t taken on the day of the poisoning if you were thinking that’s significant.
Pears Morgaine.
True.
Can’t say categorically but, it appears to be two or three years previously as I read Julia lost a
lot of weight for her wedding that was planned in the year they were both attacked.
Guess at the picture:
Possibly Newsnight presenter Mark Urban.
It was Skripal’s son. I deal with this in detail here. https://x.com/timtron2020/status/1859901800067022885
@ Tim N
“It was Skripal’s son.”
======
Do you have a photo of him Before his death in 2017?
SeveraL AI engines draw a blank. However Google AI mode identifies the photographer as “Peter Back”.
An ordinary Google search on “Peter Back”. delivers a Flickr file including exactly the same photo we see above.
There also seems to be a shot of Skripal behind bars, with a monochrome photo of his younger self in (GRU?) uniform attsched to the bars.
Search: Skripal | Flickr
A ‘misleading article in the Daily Mail’; surely not. I never heard of such a thing…
LOL
The person reflected in the mirror is Sergei’s son Sasha, Stevie, who sadly died of alcoholic liver disease in 2017. The picture was taken a few years before the poisonings, which is why Yulia looks a lot different.
While I’m here, have I mentioned that anyone who wants to get a good idea of what happened in Salisbury & Amesbury in 2018 – from someone who doesn’t believe 9/11 was an inside job – can read this?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/the-salisbury-poisonings-episode-was-all-staged/page/6/#post-103404
Thanks for that – from someone who does believe 911 and JFK was carried out by the same groups, Oy vey !
Thanks for your reply Stevie. You’re very welcome.
Enjoy the weekend.
Been following this on john Helmers site, recommend the following links:
https://johnhelmer.net/lord-hughes-buries-the-skripals-alive/
https://propagandainfocus.com/schrodingers-novichok-12-points-from-the-dawn-sturgess-inquiry-part-1/
And,
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/the-day-of-the-skripal
Enjoy …
Sorry Craig but this isn’t at all significant. Anyone attending a meeting organised through UK Column is going to be a card carrying conspiracy theorist from the outset. If you told them their grandmothers had been replaced with space aliens controlled by the CIA I expect 95% would believe it. A couple of months ago Patrick Henningsen was on UK Column promoting the view that the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland were organised by the Illuminati as a dry run for the War on Terror.
https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-24th-october-2025
Scroll down to 31’18” and follow the links.
What next? Chemtrails? Freeman on the Land?
I know a lot of people around here are going to disagree but do be careful how far down this rabbit hole you venture. You’re at risk of becoming a laughing stock.
Henningsen yes. UK column no. Or rather UK column have a track record of sticking to conspiracy theories that can be proven (or are not in doubt, just covered up by mainstream media)
“You’re at risk of becoming a laughing stock.”
Pears, you recently denied that you are an acolyte of our corrupt, genocidal establishment and claimed that you would like to see every bribed politician jailed.
Yet when asked whether that applies to Labour government ministers bribed by the Israel lobby you refused to answer.
As whenever you are asked about UK government complicity in the Genocide in Gaza.
Objectively, do you not think you are slightly more at risk than Craig?
Given that ‘The Troubles’ were largely ‘organised’ by the security services, and it is the security services that are ‘organising’ the ‘War on Terror’, then we can safely assume that the security services are in fact the illumaniti !
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2025/12/11/british-security-forces-linked-to/
Just because there’s a conspiracy theory doesn’t mean there isn’t a conspiracy.
Defn: Conspiracy; a secret plan made by two or more people to do something bad, illegal, or against someone’s wishes.
So, basically, any business meeting?
I have been watching UK Column regularly since I finally despaired of the MSM in March 2020. My overall feeling is that they are a thoroughly British bunch of people: fairly conservative in a good way, and thus reluctant to believe anything alarming or weird without very good evidence. For a couple of years I was impatient with their apparent conformity, but I noticed that after a certain amount of evidence piled up they were usually willing and eager to change their views.
It’s tremendously encouraging to see a number of reliable and professional sources reaching consensus – or something close to it. Mr Murray, UK Column, John Helmer, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, Rob Slane, Kit Knightly, and several other reputable and honest bloggers. Mostly, too, people who have suffered much calumny and defamation; as Che Guevara observed, “It’s a sad thing not to have friends, but it is even sadder not to have enemies”.
More generally,
“Mankind’s dishonest; if you think it fair
Amongst known cheats to play upon the square,
You’ll be undone.
Nor can weak truth your reputation save:
The knaves will all agree to call you knave.
Wronged shall he live, insulted o’er, oppressed,
Who dares be less a villain than the rest”.
– John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647-1680), “Satire Against Reason and Mankind”.
“Anyone attending a meeting organised through UK Column is going to be a card carrying conspiracy theorist from the outset. If you told them their grandmothers had been replaced with space aliens controlled by the CIA I expect 95% would believe it.”
You might expect it, but that does tend to say more about you than the sort of people who attend a public meeting about one of the most egregious series of falsehoods, lies, fantasies and propaganda ever perpetrated by the British State. The story has more holes in it than a Swiss cheese, but even if it only had a single hole in it, that would be enough. It would tell us that those who craft the official narrative are, for whatever reason, prepared to lie to us. Once you know that then you cannot depend on any part of that narrative being the truth. Scepticism is the logical response to any pronouncement from a proven liar. Those who complain about “conspiracy theorists” are mostly complaining about people sceptical of the official narrative, given it’s not that there are theories about conspiracies that is the problem, it’s only when the people who we should be looking up to and respecting are supposed to be the conspirators.
” Those who complain about “conspiracy theorists” are mostly complaining about people sceptical of the official narrative…..”
Indeed, B. Calling people ” conspiracy theorist ” is just the contemporary version of screaming ” Witch ” at anyone the screamer doesn’t like, is suspicious of, or is uncomfortable with, ie an object to be scapegoated and fears/insecurities projected upon.
Of course there are outlandish, wildly improbable notions propagated – there always have been, Christ! have you read the Bible/Koran/Daily Mail? But just as there have always been the latter, so have there always been actual conspiracies; one, the implications/effects of we are still witnessing, is the assassination of JFK; something, changed, much for the worse, in the US Political Psyche on that day in November; an open, suppurating wound was created and all the years of cover-ups, ridiculous * Official * narratives and, crucially, the fact it was * successful *, ie the culprits got away with it, not even posthumously identified, has only served to rub salt into that wound. The Deep State, if not created that day, acquired power beyond the control of the ” organs of State ” as conventionally understood; well beyond the control of the hallowed position of POTUS, subsequent holders of which position since JFK have been nothing more than front men for Big Business & Security State- defined ” National Interests “. None more so than the present incumbent, dancing grotesquely on Zionist strings & * worked * by slimy psychopaths like Lindsey Graham; himself a Zion marionette. We can only speculate what dirt the inhumanitarians of Mossad have on that scumbag, but it must be pretty dark as we can be sure it’s not JUST money that keeps that monster slavishly defending/promoting every Zionist obscenity
” Conspiracy Theory ” is now just what slithering, duplicitous creeps with something to hide say to bludgeon/shame anyone questioning their behaviour into silence, or the apologists for such say. Much * easier * than acknowledging that the people you support/voted into power don’t give a scintilla of f*** about you or what you thought you were voting for and are following/promoting an agenda you are not even aware of.
Just look at Starmer; is he not the most blatant, arrogantly indifferent to our thoughts/concerns, exemplar of what the Political/Ruling Class has become, ie an out-of-control cabal following the orders of shadowy, unelected Elites; currently in the process of preparing the masses for what could turn out to be the literal ” War to end all wars “. No Humanity = No Wars, QED
Will any of those who reach lazily for the ” Conspiracy Theory ” supposed debate-ender care to refute the actual conspiracy theory of the ” Grave Russian threat to * our * National Security “?
Very well said!
Not surprising there are plenty of sceptics.
Anyone with half the wits, god gave a turnip. Saw that the the official story stunk from start to finish.
Even the MSM framing verbage, calling Skripal a “Russian spy” was BS. He was formerly a Russian *officer* turned “British spy”.
Thank you for this, Urban Fox.
As if he was a Russian spy, spying for Russia, looking for British secrets. Was he not.
On the one hand this is all very worthy – on the other hand I really no longer want to argue with anyone about Skripals or Novichok or Litvinenko. It is all so palpably clear. It is like arguing that Charlie Kirk was victim 500,001 of Israel. So what? I’m much more worried about victims 600,000+
Craig,
This is an interesting and important presentation – thanks for bringing it to our attention. Several new things for me. It seems that several medics in Salisbury must have been heavily leaned on to shut up.
I attended having seen the link on Craig’s twitter feed.
Looking around the room I saw very few people I recognised as locals. So I suspect the majority had come through the UK Column promotion of the event and as such could be a skewed sample.
I think if we roped in 60+ Salisburyites it would be 80% or more swallowing the official narrative whole. Even among the better informed locals there is a tendency to believe the basics of the official thesis.
As a long time follower of this blog I was aware from the outset that something was distinctly fishy and have none of the ‘but our government would never do such a thing’ complacency. I have read enough history to know better.
‘Conspiracy theory’ is a pejorative bandied about too readily. There does not have to be a shadowy cabal pulling strings from behind the scenes. Any more than there needs to be a creator to explain why we life evolves the way it does. If the environment and the rewards are conducive to certain behaviours then those behaviours will be favoured. This is why nobody from inside the civil service etc speaks out.
I have recently been rereading ‘A Bright Shining Lie’ about the us involvement in Vietnam in the late 50s and 60s. Everybody knew what they were doing was not going to lead to success but it did lead to opportunities for medals, promotions and massive graft. So it continued, worsened and spread until it collapsed in on itself. It was the only war they had.
I fear the new cold war with Russia is very similar in so many ways.
We are living in very interesting times.
On a personal note. It was wonderful to meet Craig in person last night and to listen to him expound so eloquently on this topic.
“I fear the new cold war with Russia is very similar in so many ways.”
Maybe. But there is one small difference that changes everything: the fear of mutual annihilation is gone. Back then, “escalation” was a big no-no. As, for example, when the Afghan mudj attacked across Amu Darya river into the Soviet territory in April 1987, the Soviets in return threatened to invade Pakistan. The idea of such cross-border attacks was promoted by ISI; however, although the CIA Director Bill Casey (who by then had retired) was in favour of such attacks, nobody else in Washington was and an urgent message was sent to the CIA residence in Pakistan: Please stop them! We do not want World War III! And no more such attacks took place.
But in the new cold war the Great Game is not chess anymore. It is poker and “escalation” is the rule.
Russia, China and other countries still have massive nuclear arsenals. Although Trump seems to not care about this it remains the fact of the matter.
Ukraine is not worth risking nuclear war, so while money will be poured in and weapons too the US/UK and Europe will think twice or thrice about going to war with Russia.`
It is, I agree, a massive game of poker or perhaps chicken is more apt. There is money to be had from increasing arms build ups around the world and the more control they can assert over the unruly citizenry (or subjectry?) the safer the powerful feel.
Sometimes I despair. But we have to keep doing what we can. What else is there?
AAMVN
The population of Salisbury is 62,000. Are you faliliar with them all?
People in any city tend to have a ‘look’ and also a way of talking. The attendees at this meeting did not look or sound like locals. To me anyway.
Information from the Dawn Sturgess enquiry shows that it’s very likely that on the day that Sergei Skripal collapsed, he had a brief meeting near his house with his two alleged poisoners, Petrov and Boshirov.
The timings of CCTV recordings of Sergei’s car at other locations show that he must have driven off with Yulia from his house for the very last time at about 13:30 on 4 March 2018. Similar analysis of the movements of Petrov and Boshirov makes it look very likely that they were close by at the same time, to within a couple of minutes. They had got there by foot via a laneway that ends less than forty metres from the house.
One of the enquiry’s lawyers said during the hearings that the two visitors reached the Skripals’ house “just in time to witness them leaving”. And Lord Hughes said in his report that “the two men might have been in a position to see the departure of the Skripals from their home”.
It’s remarkable that these two things happened so close together in time at the house that day: the only time that either Yulia or Sergei departed, and the second of only two very brief trips by Petrov and Boshirov there that day.
What’s more, Sergei had been sitting in his car for about five minutes before driving off, supposedly waiting for Yulia to come out of the house. The bit about Yulia could have been added to hide the fact that Sergei was really waiting for the two visitors.
The only attempt by the enquiry to suggest a possible purpose for the visitors’ trip was in Lord Hughes’s report, where he said that this “might have been another opportunity” (as well as their earlier trip to the house) to smear the door handle with Novichok. But there are some problems with that theory, even for those who believe the door handle story, and Lord Hughes considers the earlier trip to be the more likely opportunity to apply the Novichok.
Mark Urban says that malware was probably used to track or eavesdrop on the Skripals, in order to time the trip to allow the visitors to observe the Skripals’ departure. But Urban didn’t say why they would want to observe the departure. Perhaps to confirm that Sergei had touched the door handle before departing? That’s a motive for that trip that Grok suggested in a long conversation on the subject.
Anyway, if Petrov and Boshirov had applied deadly nerve agent during the previous trip that day, they would have wanted to stay well away, not just from the scene of their crime but also from Salisbury. They would not have wanted to return to a place where they might possibly encounter paramedics or even police responding to an emergency.
No wonder the enquiry and the media did not explore this timeline in much detail. The possibility of a mutually agreed meeting would undermine their already unbelievable narrative of an assassination attempt.
Careful when quoting ‘Mark Urban’ he was pals with Pablo Miller and is almost certainly a security operative.
After Salisbury, he surfaced in Ukraine, hmm, go figure.
The theory which has the best fit to everything that happened in Salisbury and nearby on that occasion and in the weeks following is that it is all lies, all of it, apart from what was shown on the CCTV which the authorities failed to confiscate. That it is all lies is borne out by the simple fact that the confiscated CCTV footage has never been released.
The only thing I can say is that the door handle stuff seems extremely unlikely.
Two evil doers nipped smartly up to door in ordinary clothes and slapped loads of Novichok on a door handle on a windy and drizzling Sunday in a cul de sac and weren’t seen by anyone.
Miraculously the two remained un – harmed and sprinted( or ambled) for a train a fair bit later.
By the way – if you think out of the box a bit it could have been Russians that attacked them but not the Russian State.
Where money is to be made. it attracts villains from all nations.
The reason for the doorknob story is obvious. Three people were taken ill, the two Skripals and the other man in the restaurant “who looked like a spy”. When he was admitted to hospital, he was booked in as a policeman. I expect that’s standard procedure for spooks as the police can be relied on to go along with it. It was unconvincing from the start: we didn’t see his superiors, colleagues or family on TV telling us what a great bloke he was. Contrast and compare with every other policeperson previously in a similar or worse situation. But anyway, we were expected to think he had contacted the poison while tending to the striken Skripals. Until some pesky civilians mentioned that it was a policewoman who did that. Panic. They needed a quick explanation how the “policeman” got poisoned and lit on saying he’d gone to the house. But he couldn’t have gone inside which left only the doorknob. Oh what a tangled web we weave…
At this point in the comments thread and the comments forum generally, I might add that Novichok is supposed to be an unstable substance that loses potency within half an hour of its being applied to something or being exposed to air, and that it quickly degrades in the presence of water in liquid or gaseous form.
I believe that early advice given to people in Salisbury in the immediate aftermath of the Skripal poisoning incident by the authorities was to wash their clothes and anything else that might have been contaminated by Novichok on the day.
Sorry, but this is nonsense. Firstly Novichok is a catch all phrase for a number of different nerve agents and there is no evidence as to which variant the one allegedly used in Salisbury applies. Secondly most experts completely disagree with the idea that these nerve agents degrade quickly, despite adverse weather conditions. These agents are highly toxic and persistent. Finally, the Skripals were not attacked with Novichok or they would have died at their house.
AFAICS, “Novichok” (“newcomer” in Russian) is the first in a new type of programmeable poisons. The operator using it can pre-program it to be as deadly and as long lasting as the situation requires. This accounts for the totally different reactions to the poison in different circumstances by both the poisoners, the victims and the authorities.
Indeed, but this doesn’t explain why two people with completely different ages, sexes, and physiologies both succumbed at an identical time hours after allegedly being infected hours earlier and partook in different drinks and meals.
It wasn’t a Novichok.
It wasn’t on a door knob.
It wasn’t what the MSM and the Government and the OPCW and Porton Down said it was.
It wasn’t the Russians wot done it.
“Indeed, but this doesn’t explain why two people with completely different ages, sexes, and physiologies both succumbed at an identical time hours after allegedly being infected hours earlier and partook in different drinks and meals.”
That’s because the Novichok was pre-programmed to take those differences into account.
There was only one “Novichok” used, not two, so there wasn’t an opportunity to develop and apply a verve agent that would take into account different people’s physiology. You’re sounding like a Govt sycophant. It looks increasingly like the UK-SS were heavily involved, not Russian GRU.
But, you do you.
Bye
“There was only one “Novichok” used, not two,”
There wasn’t any “Novichok”. It’s all balls. If I sounded like a government sycophant, that was deliberate: so many completely unlikely or downright impossible things form part of the official narrative that I thought I would join in the fantasy with my “programmeable drugs”.
Sorry
Please tell me more. I am a simple MSc, biochemist with 40 years experience of biochemicals and chemical analysis. Despite that I have missed out on finding techniques to pre-program the release of toxins with that accuracy. Let me in on your secrets. Please no references to TV forensics.
Anyone who believes any of the official narrative about the Skripals should have no problem accepting the existence of pre-programmeable drugs without anyone producing any evidence apart from that provided by the narrative.
So the light has dawned on many – that Westminster’s official narrative on the Skripal’s attack in Salisbury, that its mainly made up of lies and deceit – who’d have thought that Westminster would tell lies – answer, just about everyone. Sadly poor Dawn Sturgess will never see real justice.
Republicofscotland.
Yes – how Dawn and Charlie ended up involved in all this is probably the biggest puzzle of the lot.
Eight weeks later Charlie allegedly goes Charity Bin Dipping ( he must have log arms and guile) as
I’m pretty sure Charity Bins are designed to not let that happen as a lot of future stock would dis-appear.
He gets it on his hands ” It didn’t smell like perfume .” he says to The Daily Mirror so I gave it Dawn as
perfume.
My personal opinion is that he was given it.
The question for the Old Bill is:
Who gave him the bottle and why?
I strongly suspect that Dawn and Charlie were made patsies in a much bigger and dangerous game.
The disappeared Skripals are also, in my opinion, innocent patties. Where are they ?
“how Dawn and Charlie ended up involved in all this is probably the biggest puzzle of the lot.”
MARK M CUTTS.
Indeed Mark a mystery it is – and just as mysterious is the disappearance of the Skripal’s, Whitehall knows the true answers to these questions – but alas we will probably never know the truth of the matter.
The puzzle is probably not that difficult to work out, if you consider the timing of Dawn Sturgess’s collapse and death (about the end of June 2018) and match it to what had happened before June 2018 and what else was occurring in June.
Julia Skripal had miraculously recovered just before Easter with no neurological side effects, and her father also recovered some time later. Julia Skripal was interviewed in May 2018 and video footage showed her walking and talking normally. The Skripals then disappear from the media’s radar screen.
About the same time, people were travelling to Russia for the FIFA World Cup (starting in the middle of June 2018) and the experiences that British football fans in Russia were reporting and sharing on social media platforms were threatening to derail the British government and media narrative of Russia and Russians being hostile and sinister towards visitors. Something had to be done to distract public attention away from the World Cup and Dawn Sturgess’s death in Amesbury provided that distraction. The details of her death had to be changed to fit the poisoning narrative, hence the ridiculous story about her being poisoned by Novichok in a perfume bottle given her by her drug dealer boyfriend (who might have been threatened with charges of supplying her with the heroin or fentanyl or other drug that caused her death) after he found it in a charity skip.
Jen: your point that “ [Charlie] might have been threatened with charges of supplying [Dawn] with the heroin or fentanyl or other drug that caused her death” has not received the attention it deserves. Why on earth would Charlie volunteer to the police the information that he had supplied Dawn with an illegal and potentially dangerous substance such as fentanyl, if he had done so? Much better and safer for him to let the police believe that he had found a bottle of what appeared to be perfume and given it to Dawn as a present.
“if you consider the timing of Dawn Sturgess’s collapse and death (about the end of June 2018) and match it to what had happened before June 2018 and what else was occurring in June.”
Something else that was happening around the time of Dawn Sturgess’s death was that there were reports in the press of a new, illegal recreational drug that was doing the rounds and was resulting in enough people dying to warrant oficial concern. However, that was quickly memory-holed.
“Sadly poor Dawn Sturgess will never see real justice.”
Since it looks increasingly likely that she was largely responsible, through carelessness, for her own death, it is hard to see how she could.
@ Coldish: I was assuming in my comment that Charlie Rowley was under pressure to agree with and go along with the story of Dawn Sturgess having been poisoned by Novichok – because if he didn’t, the police could have pressed charges against him of supplying her with whatever it was that actually caused her death, whether he actually did or not.
Rowley himself was injured and in a coma and he might have been in a fragile mental state with a poor memory when he regained consciousness. An easy target for police intimidation.
I’ve seen a video of Sturgess going into a shop to buy alcohol a day or two days before her death. The video was taken from the shop’s CCTV camera. Sturgess looked dreadfully pale and malnourished, and for a woman in her mid-40s she looked 20 years older. She clearly was in a state of chronic ill health and at that point anything could have finished her off.
Hope that clarifies what I said earlier.
It’s a good video, but UKColumn is a bit of a conspiracy-peddling, BS-peddling website. One video I saw spoke of innate characteristics of different racial groups. It was racial hierarchy BS.
Lydia.
There are many things we are not allowed to know or discuss, the fantasy of the official narrative must be maintained. Free speech and transparency is the only way to expose BS and lies.
In case it’s of interest, here’s an AI synopsis of this presentation:
Summary of Craig Murray’s Skripal Research Discussion
This recorded discussion, held with Craig Murray, Tim Norman, and Patrick Henningsen, offers a critical counter-narrative to the UK government’s account of the 2018 Salisbury nerve-agent events involving Sergei and Yulia Skripal and the later death of Dawn Sturgess. The speakers argue that the official story is riddled with contradictions, secrecy, misrepresentation, and politically motivated distortions.
1. Context and Purpose
The presenters visited Salisbury to retrace the events and question the official narrative. They frame their research as a public-interest effort motivated by the Sturgess family’s attempts to understand Dawn’s death.
2. Murray’s Premise: Government Deception Is a Real Possibility
Craig Murray argues that:
The British government has a long track record of lying in high-stakes matters (rendition, torture, Iraq WMD).
Therefore, skepticism toward the Skripal narrative should not be dismissed as conspiratorial.
He highlights the UK-government-funded Integrity Initiative, which paid journalists to promote government-aligned narratives—including on the Skripal case.
3. The Dawn Sturgess Inquiry: Secrecy and Restrictions
Tim Norman outlines seven “things that didn’t happen,” focused mainly on the Sturgess inquiry’s shortcomings:
a. The UK government tried to avoid a full inquiry
The original coroner intended a narrow inquest, avoiding questions of Russian culpability. Only the Sturgess family’s legal challenge forced a public inquiry.
b. The inquiry was opaque
Held secret sessions even the family’s lawyers could not attend.
Evidence was restricted by Home Office notices.
4. Key Witnesses Did Not Testify
Charlie Rowley
Central witness for the perfume-bottle narrative.
Did not testify because he was said to be “too drunk” to give evidence.
His past includes alcoholism, heroin addiction, and fraud convictions; his account was acknowledged even by the inquiry chair as “fraught with inconsistency.”
Sergei and Yulia Skripal
Not allowed to appear, even via secure video link.
5. Evidence Problems and Scientific Contradictions
a. No Novichok detected in Sturgess’s blood
The Birmingham NHS toxicology lab—extremely well equipped—found no organophosphate (no nerve agent) in her blood.
Porton Down pre-emptively took its own samples, seemingly anticipating that Birmingham would find nothing. Its tests later reportedly did find nerve agent—something no other accredited lab could reproduce.
b. OPCW laboratories could not match the Skripal and Sturgess samples
The inquiry report claimed the samples were “highly likely” from the same batch, but OPCW documents explicitly said the labs could not establish a match. Murray and Norman call this a falsehood.
c. The perfume bottle story is chemically implausible
The pump was not a misting atomizer (necessary for effective topical nerve-agent dispersal).
The liquid was described as viscous—again, inconsistent with an atomized spray.
Yet the same bottle was claimed to be the “perfect delivery mechanism” for contaminating a front-door handle.
6. Medical Evidence Contradicts the Narrative
a. Early clinical diagnoses suggested opioid overdose
Paramedics and initial physicians believed the Skripals were experiencing an opiate overdose. This aligned with both presentation and the later (confirmed) opiate deaths in Rowley’s personal life.
b. Yulia Skripal woke up quickly and fully neurologically intact
ICU consultant Dr. Stephen Cockcroft said he was “gobsmacked” that Yulia had no neurological damage only four days after collapse—something incompatible with severe nerve-agent poisoning.
7. Propaganda and International Manipulation
a. Fake images used to influence U.S. policy
British intelligence gave the CIA photographs of “dead ducks” and “sick children,” claiming they resulted from Novichok exposure. These images were used to persuade President Trump to expel 60 Russian diplomats.
The New York Times later issued a correction: the images were not from Salisbury at all.
b. Yet CCTV shows local boys and ducks unharmed
Children fed ducks using bread from the Skripals’ allegedly contaminated hands; neither children nor ducks were harmed.
8. The Larger Political Framing
Speakers suggest the Skripal/Sturgess events served as:
A catalyst for Theresa May’s international Rapid Response Mechanism, aligning NATO/G7 messaging on national-security narratives.
Part of a pattern of portraying Russia as an aggressive global threat, contributing to escalating tensions prior to the Ukraine conflict.
Murray argues this reflects a broader geopolitical strategy rather than a narrowly defined criminal event.
9. Porton Down’s Central Role
All three speakers emphasize that “all roads lead to Porton Down”—the UK’s premier chemical weapons lab, located just miles from Salisbury:
It supplied the decisive but unverified scientific claims.
It contradicted other accredited labs.
It has historical ties to secrecy and controversial programs (e.g., David Kelly’s death is raised as an example).
10. Conclusion of the Panel
The presenters argue that:
The official story is inconsistent, scientifically unsupported, and shaped by political imperatives.
Multiple critical facts “didn’t happen” as officially described.
The Sturgess family, the Skripals, and the Salisbury community are victims of a state-managed narrative rather than of a clearly demonstrated Russian attack.
The discussion ends with reflections on media groupthink, institutional psychology, and the erosion of democratic transparency.
In case of Skripals, I believe fentanyl was used. And the pair of Russian operatives was somehow lured to Salisbury in time.
What convinced me that it was the Ruskies wot done it is the information that surfaced some four weeks later about Russian scientists testing Novichock on door handles. Up ’till then I’d been somewhat sceptical of the official narrative.
It’s just a shame though that the Intelligence Services didn’t think to pass the information on to the counterterrorism police and chemical weapons experts in Salisbury straight away, and save them all a lot of fucking about (and bring all the speculation by the MSM to an end). Unless of course they only aquired the information some time AFTER the Skripals were poisoned.
And then there was Navalney…. Oh my word, what a dead giveaway.
if there were ‘180 military experts in chemical warfare defence and decontamination’ in Salisbury, as it says in the wikipedia entry, and was widely covered by the MSM at the time (who arrived in Salisbury five days later), then how come it wasn’t until March 14th that the investigation focused on Skripal’s home (and car), as it states in the wikipedia entry:
By 14 March, the investigation was focused on Skripal’s home and car, a bench where the two fell unconscious, a restaurant in which they dined and a pub where they had drinks
What on earth were 180 military experts doing prior to that? And given that there were so many of them, surely they could have sent a contingent of half-a-dozen or so off straight away to check his pad over (and ditto his car etc). Doesn’t add up or make sense to me. And the first thing you would have checked before entering his house is the door handle or door knob of course.And ESPECIALLY seeing as how Nick Bailey had been found to have been poisoned by the time they arrived.
None of it sounds plausible.
And then there was all the stuff about Nick Bailey being a first responder and a hero, when he wasn’t, and didn’t arrive on the scene until after the Skripals had been taken to hospital. It was a lie, and a falsehood, but then all good fairy tales need a hero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal
Yes, in Navalny’s case there was Novichok in the tea he drank at Tomsk airport just before he boarded the plane; Novichok in the bottle of water purchased from a vending machine by a woman in his entourage – a woman (Maria Pevchikh) who then quickly left his group and boarded a flight out of Russia – and Novichok smeared on Navalny’s underwear at the Tomsk hotel where he stayed. In short, Novichok everywhere wherever Navalny turned. Truly mind-blowing!
Thank heavens they let him go off to Germany, which no doubt saved his life.
PS I believe he may also have eaten some Novichocs at some point. It’s truely a miracle he survived, as many people miraculously do it would appear.
Fentanyl is extremely potent, and even a small amount (as little as 2 mg, a few grains of salt) can be fatal, affects:
– Drowsiness/sleepiness and fatigue.
– Nausea and vomiting.
– Constipation; Dizziness or lightheadedness; Confusion; Headache.
– Pupillary constriction (pinpoint pupils).
– Slow, shallow, or stopped breathing.
– Bluish lips, fingernails, or skin (cyanosis).
– Severe drowsiness or inability to wake up.
– Cold and clammy skin.
– Limp muscles.
– Slowed heartbeat or low blood pressure.
– Coma.
Go figure.
Re: ‘Constipation’
Not to put too fine a point on it, Stevie, but according to the paramedics that treated her, Dawn Sturgess had shat herself – as had Yulia Skripal.
Re: ‘Go figure’
I already did nine months ago:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/the-salisbury-poisonings-episode-was-all-staged/page/6/#post-103404
– and very recently did a bit more.
You got me there RLA. Now whenever someone mentions constipation I’ll think of you.
Thanks for your reply Stevie. Fecal incontinence is a well-known effect of exposure to nerve agents. I don’t have any trouble with constipation myself (probably thanks to my almost vegan diet), but my old man suffers from it due to the ferrous fumerate he’s been prescribed for his anemia. I keep telling him to take iron bisglycinate instead, but he won’t listen because I’m not a (medical) doctor.
“Not to put too fine a point on it, Stevie, but according to the paramedics that treated her, Dawn Sturgess had shat herself – as had Yulia Skripal.”
There are a huge number of poisons that cause the victim of poisoning to shit themselves: shitting yourself is the body’s reaction to being poisoned, an attempt by the body to rid itself of the poison, the most common one being alcohol in large quantities. Thus if nerve agents make you shit yourself, shitting yourself doesn’t mean that you have been poisoned by a nerve agent, only the reverse is true.
Dave Pollard
Interesting stuff.
The thing that bothers myself is why Dawn and Charlie became enmeshed in this story all of
eight weeks later?
It is almost like the original government/spooks implausible original narrative had to be re-inforced later.
If that was the case (and I don’t know for sure) then it only shows the lengths the State will go to cover
their backsides and that is much worse than the attack on The Skripals.
Much much worse.
As became the popular wisdom after Watergate, the cover-up does far more damage than the original crime. It’s similar to the sunk costs fallacy, compounded by politicians’ utter refusal ever to admit that they have been wrong.
“Much much worse.”
Much as I hold no brief for the British State, I don’t think anything worse was done here than weave a tissue of lies about a woman who had died after taking an illegal and lethal recreational drug.
Good heavens, Bayard, the underlying purpose was obviously part of a systematic campaign to stir up hostility to and fear of Russia in British citizens.
So far that has only resulted in many of us being hit by absurdly high bills for gas and electricity – we pay about 4 times as much for electricity as Americans, and perhaps 9 times as much as Russians. Oh, and the impending complete demise of what little remains of British industry and commerce. And all because HMG chose to cut off our nose to spite our face, which has had absolutely no effect on Russians except to confirm their belief that the British are their deadly enemies and profoundly stupid to boot.
But listening to the continual propaganda being pumped out by London and Brussels, their aim is apparently to start an actual war against Russia. That can end in only one way: the UK becoming uninhabited and uninhabitable. It would take less than one day, and would cost the Russians no effort other than typing in a few coordinates and pressing a few buttons.
Like Herr Schmertz and M. Macron, Sir Keir Starmer is evidently becoming utterly deranged. Even Mr Trump looks sane and level-headed in comparison.
“Good heavens, Bayard, the underlying purpose was obviously part of a systematic campaign to stir up hostility to and fear of Russia in British citizens.”
That would have happened whether Dawn Sturgess had died or not: it is has been the MO of the PTB for decades, ever since the end of WWII, when the Russians were inconveniently our allies for four years. Utilising Dawn’s death wasn’t an escalation of that MO: it’s not like the security services bumped her off, so, bad though it is, it’s not “Much much worse.”
Michael Hudson lays it all out in simple terms:
“The Ceasefire Charade”
https://michael-hudson.com/2025/12/the-ceasefire-charade/
“It’s all about the narrative, once again. That’s what they’re trying to do in all of this; and that’s why they keep calling Trump Neville Chamberlain, and turning Trump into “Putin’s puppet.” It turns history inside out, and, with it, the whole idea of right and wrong, and good and evil, as described by the whole spirit of civilization for the last few hundred years of drawing up laws of warfare — laws to prevent armies from attacking civilians, false-flag operations. The whole behavior, and breakdown, of the system of international law that’s occurred over the last few decades — really since 1990 (quite a few decades now) — all of this is a breakdown.
“That’s what we’re dealing with: the breakdown of the West, and the attempt by Russia, China, and Eurasia to create its own laws of civilization — on how they would define civilization — and these laws are pretty universal; and they’ll pick up what the West’s ideals used to be, but which the West has abandoned now”.
“That’s what they’re trying to do in all of this; and that’s why they keep calling Trump Neville Chamberlain, ”
The whole idea of “appeasement” is a post-war fiction, part of the rewriting of the history of WWII to make it the “War Against Fascism” . The British government had no problem with Fascists, as can be seen by their support for Franco in his overthrowing of the democratically elected Spanish government and their informal alliance with Germany and Finland in the “Winter War”. Their problem was with Socialism. Fascists were fine, so long as they were fighting Socialists. Stalin wanted to send the Red Army to Czechoslovakia to deter Hitler, but the Poles wouldn’t let him cross Poland. It wasn’t until the British government knew that Hitler was not going to attack Russia after all that they declared war on Germany, using the invasion of Poland as a casus belli, whereas Germany’s real crime was not invading another country, but concluding a non-aggression pact with the country they should have been fighting, communist Russia.
B: “The whole idea of “appeasement” is a post-war fiction, part of the rewriting of the history of WWII to make it the “War Against Fascism” . ”
That’s a good argument, and some very interesting points.
The upshot of it all is that justice has not been served and never will on poor Dawn Sturgess and her family. Like every other British subject, each and everyone of us, she will be thrown under the proverbial bus when it is in the interests of the British State.
I wanted to listen to the conference video right through before commenting.
1. I thought Tim Norman exaggerated the interpretation of Lord Hugh’s finding of a ‘highly likely’ match of samples, i.e. not 100% certain.
2. Craig Murray doesn’t believe Porton Down. I’m shocked!
3. The ‘game’ may be based on uncertainty, so that people can adopt positions acceptable to their conscience. Thus the absence of WMD in Iraq was not certain till Americans had the run of the place, given Saddam encouraging suspicion about having it.
4. My own hypothesis:
The Skripal’s door handle was sprayed with a less strong agent. It ddn’t work, so the main attempt at murder was done when they were on the bench by a quick spray on the visible body like hands. The sealed package was discarded spare kit.
Dawn Sturgess may have been poisoned with Novochok – if so, Porton Down’s methods of detection may be better than others though experimental as yet.
5. The same people who said ‘Russia will never invade the UK’ said on Feb 26 2022 such things as ‘I could not believe Putin really would invade Ukraine, because I could see no sensible outcome for him. I still cannot.’ And earlier, on Feb 12 2022, ‘The mainstream media is, without exception, repeating the unevidenced claim from the Biden administration that Russia is about to invade Ukraine. They do this with no proper journalistic questioning or scepticism.’ Go figure.
6. The theory of an extraction op gone wrong sounds like nonsense to me. The Skripals must be in hiding on the other side of the Atlantic to make it doubly impossible for Putin’s goons to find them again.
All that said, why make up an absurd story about portable heat sealers? This to me is a very interesting question. Why speak palpable nonsense? Is a message which cannot be spoken out loud being sent to someone, and if so, what? The same might apply to implausible stories of sprays turning up behind dishes on the sink only very late during a search by police.
Because it’s all made up. The two absurdities you do mention – the ‘portable heat sealer’ and the 11th-day discovery behind the washing up – are only two of the myriad impossibilities Craig listed in that speech. However, as you freely admit in point 5, you are going to continue to believe everything the client media tell you, no matter how absurd.
MJ
But how would the would-be assassins know it didn’t work? Were they following the Skripals around (in a cab when the Skripals were in the car) to see if it did or not? And why would they use a less strong substance to begin with if they had the strong stuff with them?
And surely traces of this less strong stuff would have been found as well.
Allan Howard
Here’s one suggestion: they ‘paint’ the door handle and wait in town. If the Skripals show up, that means they survived. For that to work, they need knowledge of their routine, or have induced them to come into town. Tempting Skripal to become a double defector is one possibilty, though the intention is to eliminate them.
I doubt that spies ever actually retire, and operating as a double agent pays better.
Sergei Skripal attended a (security?)meeting in Prague about a month before the incident in Salisbury. This would have been an opportune place for him to make contact or be contacted by Russian agents. Or indeed to be killed by them without the complication of his daughter being present.
If you remove Yulia Skripal from the Salisbury attack then it becomes a great deal less newsworthy. Ditto for the two Russian agents- who were surely known to UK security services- happening to be near the scene. Ditto for Porton Down being nearby as well.
And add in a hero who comes to their rescue, with no thought for his own safety, and you have all the makings of a great novel. And when we were told initially that Sergei and Yulia were unlikely to survive, or if they did, they would be permanently damaged by the novichocs, our hearts sunk, and our collective anger towards that President Putin mushroomed like an atomic cloud, but then first Yulia recovered, and then her daddy, and we rejoiced and felt a great weight lift from our collective shoulders, and we could breath again. And everyone lived happily ever after.
Oh, and I was forgetting that Nick Bailey was awarded a gold glittering medal for bravery by the Queen of the Daffodils.
*said on Feb 26 2022 such things as ‘I could not believe Putin really would invade Ukraine, because I could see no sensible outcome for him. I still cannot.’*
This is one of the most significant aspects of the Ukraine war. I, along with it looks like pretty much everyone else, underestimated Russian military power. But the moment the invasion began, I reassessed my assumptions. Putin isn’t stupid: we’ve seen that over decades. It wasn’t a war he could afford to lose so he must have been pretty certain he could win and he and his advisors knew more than any of us did. But the groupthink that of course the West would win any war continued among our leaders. Amazing considering how many wars we’ve lost recently. Trump, for all his failings, isn’t part of that groupthink. He can see this war is lost and is prepared to settle on broadly Russia’s terms. Unfortunately, Europe’s leaders seem to remain as deluded as we all were before it kicked off.
Steve Hayes
December 13, 2025 at 16:57
You said “It wasn’t a war he (Putin) could afford to lose so he must have been pretty certain he could win and he and his advisors knew more than any of us did.”.
How do you know that ” It wasn’t a war he could afford to lose”?
After all, the Nazi regime under Hitler invaded Russia – a war he couldn’t afford to lose.
Hitler “must have been pretty certain he could win and he and his advisors knew more than any of us did”.
How did that work out for the NSDAP? (Their chiefs hanging from gallows.)
JK, think whatever you like. But don’t look at how the war is turning out. You won’t like it. Hitler seems to have been more like our lot who just assume their Wonder Weapons will win any war against “lesser races”. Though, having rampaged through Western Europe with little effective opposition, maybe he had more justification for his misplaced optimism.
Steve Hayes
December 13, 2025 at 22:09
No offence intended Steve but imo that answer doesn’t address my point.
You said “It wasn’t a war he (Putin) could afford to lose so he must have been pretty certain he could win and he and his advisors knew more than any of us did.”.
How do you know that ”It wasn’t a war he could afford to lose”?
JK – because losing this war would see Putin removed from power, probably with extreme prejudice. Of course it’s always noticeable that people such as you seize on some minor point to quibble over while ignoring the broader point I’ve made. In this case, the lazy assumption that of course the West can win any war. So really not worth my while continuing the stupid quibble.
Putin was banking on a short war that would be over before anybody had a chance to come to Ukraine’s aid. It’s now the Russians who have now fallen back on ‘Wunderwaffe’, the ‘unstoppable’ hypersonic missiles and glide bombs, to try and break the civilian population.
”Putin was banking on a short war that would be over before anybody had a chance to come to Ukraine’s aid.”
Putin told you this himself?
I don’t entirely disagree however. I think he intended a short sharp shock to force Ukraine to the negotiating table which almost bore fruit in Istanbul. Any future settlement, short of WW3, will offer far less agreeable terms for Ukraine.
Steve Hayes
December 14, 2025 at 11:11
My point is of course that Hitler also “couldn’t afford to lose” his war with the USSR. As his suicide in 1945 confirms.
When an autocrat launches a war of choice, he is gambling his future as well as the lives of millions of his countrymen.
Tough tits for Putin when his war comes home.
Unlike von der Leyen or Rutte, the ‘autocrat’ Vadimir Putin was actually elected to his position by popular vote. He was not appointed.
David Warriston
December 14, 2025 at 13:53
David, it is easy to be elected if (like Putin) you prevent opponents from getting onto the ballot.
”David, it is easy to be elected if (like Putin) you prevent opponents from getting onto the ballot.”
That’s probably true, although I am not Romanian.
David Warriston
December 14, 2025 at 18:10
You are not Romanian?
You refer to the Russkiy/Manchurian candidate disqualified by the Romanian Supreme Court?
While Putin has held office for (?) over 20 years?
“You refer to the Russkiy/Manchurian candidate disqualified by the Romanian Supreme Court?”
So your idea of “democracy” includes not letting anyone stand for election that the ruling government disapproves of? Whatever happened to the idea of letting the people choose, or are they only allowed to choose from the “right” candidates?
“While Putin has held office for (?) over 20 years?”
If the Russian people didn’t want him as president, don’t you think they might not have voted for him?
It is not absolutely certain that Hitler did kill himself.
A number of books claim that he escaped to Argentina. I think that such claims do need to be seriously considered.
“the main attempt at murder was done when they were on the bench by a quick spray on the visible body like hands”
By whom? By the boy who fed the ducks with them? 🙂
Your hypothesis presumes that some more poisonous agent was used in this 2nd attempt (since you called it “the main attempt”) but there are important differences with the door handle. With the door handle, you are in control of the situation; with someone’s hands you have only partial control. You are at much higher risk of poisoning yourself or rising suspicion of the person you are trying to poison. Besides, there were 2 targets, Sergey and Yulia. I find it highly unlikely someone could handle this.
Mr Murray’s earlier reporting from the Dawn Sturgess inquiry references the evidence given by Dr. Stephen Cockcroft ICU consultant at the hospital who treated and communicated with Yulia Skripal. Yulia who was distressed when she regained consciousness was able to confirm some details of how she had been poisoned. However as I recollect the presiding judge at the Sturgess inquiry did not admit Dr Cockcroft’s evidence into the inquiry report and unfortunately for Dr Cockcroft when he advised his line manager’s at the time he managed to communicate with Yulia he was promptly subject to disciplinary proceedings. Ah well nothing to see here..
I also have an inkling that Mr Murray may have reported that a certain Mr P. Miller was also at Zizzi’s restuarant with Sergei and Yulia but I may be mistaken about this.
Correct good memory
Grok’s “measured” reply on the question below -Grok was fairly open and honest at one point before it was shall we say, got at – now in certain matters is just regurgitates the official narrative – from different angle.
Where is Yulia Skripal and her father Sergei Skripal?
“Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal have not been seen publicly since shortly after the 2018 Novichok poisoning attempt in Salisbury, UK. They survived the attack, were discharged from hospital in spring 2018, and were placed under UK government protection.
Their exact whereabouts remain classified for security reasons, as confirmed in recent reports from the ongoing inquiry into the related death of Dawn Sturgess (December 2025 updates). A UK judge ruled there is an “overwhelming risk” of further attacks if their location or identities are revealed.
Reports from credible sources (including The Sunday Times in 2020, cited in 2025 articles) indicate they spent time in a secure MI6 safe house in the UK before being relocated overseas under new identities. Speculation has pointed to New Zealand (or possibly Australia) as their new home, with support to start a new life. No confirmed public sightings or statements have emerged since 2019–2020 indirect contacts (e.g., a Christmas card to former neighbors).
Russian officials and media continue to question their status, demanding proof of well-being, but UK authorities maintain secrecy to protect them. As of December 2025, Sergei (age 74) and Yulia (age 41) are believed to be alive and living privately abroad.”
Even people illegally detained in guantanamo bay are known about, even ‘Stakeknive’ in his safe house in Surrey was known about. In this day and age no-one completely dissappears unless they are deceased.
Sergei and Yulia RIP.
The Witness Protection Programme seems to work quite well; unless you have addresses for Robert Thompson and Maxine Carr.
It’s possible to make a conspiracy theory out of everything. Even out of aeroplane exhaust fumes. Conspiracy theories are so attractive because they offer a convincing rationale – an act of a god, a superhuman or an incredibly powerful cabal – for what can’t be well explained at this stage. (That’s the origin of religion by the way.)
Masses hate it when the government, scientists or, in general, people in a position of authority say, “We don’t know,” or “It’s complicated.” Masses will respond: “You’re hiding the truth from us.”
I absolutely don’t believe that the UK government would concote such an unbelievable plan, one that would require dozens of people coordinating everything perfectly, with so many points of possible failure or information leakage, and such a high physical risk to everyone involved, simply to say loud that Russia is bad or to expel a few of its diplomats. Sorry, it doesn’t work this way. Whatever gaps in the official timeline are there, conspiracy isn’t an answer.
Nothing about the official Skripal story withstands scrutiny. Did you watch the video?
More broadly, this is simply how it works in 21st-century Britain. It does not matter how ludicrous the yarn or how disgusting the state crime, everybody in public life sticks to the script or maintains silence as required to protect their careers. (Many at the bottom of the ladder follow suit in order to maintain articles of faith about their ruling class, British values/ superiority or whatever).
Russia is one issue on which no dissent at all will be brooked. But there are others. Consider the “Labour antisemitism crisis” psyop; the scrupulous silence about UK government complicity in the Gaza Genocide; the mandatory outrage about the banning of racist Israeli football thugs.
Anybody who isn’t on board puts themselves beyond the pale of acceptability. It is extremely well understood.
It’s where most of these conspiracies fail, they’d require a large number of people to be ‘in the know’ and yet none of them ever blow the whistle and no information ever leaks out. Given the record of successive governments in that sphere that’s nothing short of miraculous.
You will never know about information that has leaked out if you rely on sources which never pass such information on.
Conspiracy theories are always attributed to other people. Those who hold a “conspiracy theory” do not regard it as such as they clearly believe in it unless they deliberately concoct the theory knowing that it is a lie in order to deceive others.
“Russiagate” is now officially regarded as a hoax at least by the Trump administration when it was used by the Biden administration to whip up anti – Russian feelings. The “missing Ukraine children” is a hoax that is still used for the same political ends.
As for the Skripal hoax, how about this for a conspiracy theory? It was all sour grapes on the part of the British government initially for its failure to outbid Russia’s successful bid to host the 2018 World Cup (bottom of the short list). Added to which it failed to stop Russia from hosting it after its annexation of Crimea, an event that rattled all the cages of the collective west. The Dawn Sturgess incident following a drip feed of police statements implicating Russia more and more bit by bit coincided with the World Cup itself. Too late to have any impact at the time of course as Russia scored a major PR victory as even BBC’s Steve Rosenberg conceded in his reporting. But it certainly helped to mitigate the risks of people at large seeing Russia in a different light to how governments and media like to portray it.
If I have a theory that involves two or more people doing something in secret then I would call that a conspiracy theory and myself a conspiracy theorist because that’s the ordinary English meaning of the word “conspiracy”.
“I absolutely don’t believe that the UK government would concote such an unbelievable plan, ”
This is the government(s) that brought you: WMD, Covid, Climate and various other lies.
It doesn’t take dozens of people coordinated to realise these conspiracies it just needs a couple of well placed crooks like in MI6, Spads, Bellingcat, Mossad, etc. Then the MSM can be trusted to spread the lies and there you go. The government are just useful fools in all this, wave some money and influence in their direction and they’ll do and say anything, whilst believing nothing.
The Covid and Climate Change as hoaxes are prime examples. We’re supposed to believe that every government in the world, many of whom despise and distrust each other, as well the global scientific community and the MSM, in all millions of people, were all persuaded to go along with this for what purpose? Depopulation by ‘vaccines’? Stop plebs from travelling? Well that’s working.
People like you, who flatter themselves that they’re so rational and of superior intelligence, are precisely the type who believe every bit of ludicrous State-issued bollocks imaginable whilst looking down on anyone who refuses to be satisfied by obvious – actual – misinformation. In the two instances you refer…..1st. Every GOVERNMENT in world may have been singing from the same COVID IS THE MOST DEADLY * VIRUS * EVER TO IMPACT ON MANKIND utterly ridiculous hysteria hymn sheet, when it was clear pretty early on that whatever this ” novel virus ” was, the people most at risk from it were easily identifiable, ie elderly people- typically 70+, those with pre-existing respiratory conditions, and, generally, those with co-morbidities, severely overweigh people; in other words a relatively small% of the populace. Despite which, the ” Authorities “, to which you seem to impart some totally absurd omniscience – Governments never get anything wrong, right? – decided in their blind panic the whole of society must be locked down – more accurately….locked-up; the devastating economic, psychological, societal & above all political ( States realising how easy it is to cow their * citizens * into terrified compliance ) damage from which is still being felt.
It’s exactly the same scenario with the ongoing, ever-more hysterical ” Climate Crisis ” narrative – anyone seen any ” boiling oceans ” yet? has a single one of vested interest clowns like Al Gore’s apocalyptic forecasts actually happened yet, or look likely to happen? N.O . ( Oh but they might: aye, well, so might a meteor/comet/alien species devastate Earth, but the probability is very low )
It’s very easy to arrive at some bogus ” consensus ” when the dominant, State-sanctioned narrative has the power to close down any counter-narrative, no matter how plausible, and, yes, scientifically sound, those counter-narratives may be, eg by declaring, like it was holy-writ that ” the Science is settled “; is it? Well, if it’s ” settled ” it has ceased to be Science, and has become dogma. Science, by definition, must always be open to the possibility of error. What often happens, in practise, is the opposite, ie proclaimers of any given concept entrenching themselves deeper into their * beliefs * through vanity, the fear of being publicly proven wrong, or simply an inability to understand what the counter-narrative means. That’s before we consider the financial/funding implications of why certain ideas gain traction, ultimately calcifying into – supposed – * truths *.
When ” your ” continuing funding / financing is dependent on reinforcing particular perceptions of reality, almost certainly ” your ” findings will reflect that particular perception of reality; even if * unconsciously *. In this highly corporatised world, Corporations get the ” science ” they pay for.
A more prosaic example of how prevailing narratives can be and are exploited…..I have a farmer friend who owns a fairly large bit of land, who told me that because of governmental strictures, obligations, restrictions of one sort or another + the total dominance of the Supermarkets Cartel to determine the price farmers are paid for their produce + competition from foreign imports ( want an example of the idiocy of Globalism/Net Zero ideology……it’s now cheaper to buy lamb from New Zealand than lamb raised in Scotland. Fucking brilliant energy conservation there, eh? ), because of all the latter, farming is becoming unviable for him, and many others in similar situations; so, in order to access Government grants/loans he has had to * diversify * and most effective way to do that is by claiming what you are doing is ” good for the environment “, ie ” Rewilding “, planting 1000s of ” carbon storing ” trees, giving cows anti-flatulence pills ( I made that last bit up, but it’s on the same level of stupidity of many of so-called ” Planet Saving ” nostrums being propagated ). In short, as he, my friend, put it….” if you stick the word ” Green ” in front of whatever you’re doing, it’s open sesame, monies will be magically available ”
Of course the Climate is changing… IT ALWAYS HAS….and it’s true that mankind will have to take steps to mitigate the worst effects of changing climatic conditions; but FFS do so without the ridiculous fearmongering and outrageous demands on peoples’ freedoms and natural desire to enjoy life and without the overbearing, meddling, threatening impositions of the State.
The idea that the very entities most responsible for ecological degeneration, ie Global Neoliberal/con Capitalism ( yes, including it’s Russian & Chinese incarnations ) are the ones who will rectify the mess they’ve made is so completely lunatic anyone agreeing with it needs psychiatric help.
Talk about ” Conspiracy Theories “, ‘kin hell, the most egregious disseminators of same are Governments, none more so than those of the * West *
I don’t think anybody ever said that COVID 19 was the most deadly virus ever. It certainly killed fewer than some ‘flu pandemics and the plague but to suggest that the disease didn’t exist at all (which led on to claims that viruses don’t exist and fed the anti-vaccine movement) was just mad. A quote from Piers Corbyn:-
This Covid-19 virus is a hoax. There may have been something around in China, was it the same thing, was it a bio-weapon, who knows. But it was used to unleash the most monstrous power-grab the world has ever seen.
Climate change certainly happens naturally, during the Roman period it was warm and wet enough for vineyards to flourish and the mini-ice age of the 14th to 19th century caused crop failures and millions died of starvation but to deny it’s happen at all and that data is being falsified by compliant scientists? I don’t think so.
https://climatefactchecks.org/debunked-false-claims-about-co%E2%82%82-measurement-and-climate-model-scam/
I never claimed that governments are infallible and never get anything wrong, quite the opposite, they frequently mess up; which is another factor against them being able to pull off a complicated conspiracy.
@Stevie Boy: your argument fails elementary logic: existential quantifier doesn’t morph into universal quantifier. The statement, “X lied,” doesn’t logically lead to “X lies always”, while per analogiam is among the most manipulative ways of arguing.
In reality, WMD, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Skripals affair are unrelated to each other.
“conspiracy theories are so attractive because they offer a convincing rationale”
Why shouldn’t something which offers a convincing rationale be considered attractive?
“An act of God, a superhuman or an incredibly powerful cabal”
Only one of these things is a conspiracy and none of them offer a convincing rationale.
Masses will respond “your hiding the truth from us.”
Now that’s a convincing rationale.
People concoct bad plans all the time and there is no reason to believe that governments are an exception to that. Neither have they stopped conspiring.
“Conspiracy isn’t the answer”. Why not?
Conspiracy theories are attractive because they make people feel empowered. The believer is in possession of some information or understanding that sets them apart from the ordinary ‘sheeple’. The last thing they want is for their beliefs to become mainstream, it would completely destroy the false sense of superiority.
“Conspiracy theories are attractive because they make people feel empowered. ”
How is the whole “official narrative” about the Skripals not some huge conspiracy theory involving the Russians as the bad guys, or is it part of the definition of “conspiracy theory” that the bad guys can’t be Russian Iranian, North Korean, or Chinese. You can have theories about Russians Iranians, North Koreans, or Chinese conspiring, but those aren’t “conspiracy theories, right?
“The believer is in possession of some information or understanding that sets them apart from the ordinary ‘sheeple’.”
How does this differ from someone who believes in the ultimate benevolence of the state and their constant truthfulness?
“Anyone attending a meeting organised through UK Column is going to be a card carrying conspiracy theorist from the outset. If you told them their grandmothers had been replaced with space aliens controlled by the CIA I expect 95% would believe it. ”
No superiority there or anything?
The UK government, and the last five PMs, are probably as much in the dark over the Skripal affair as almost everyone else, Kacper. You wouldn’t need dozens of people to be ‘in the know’, just 3 or 4 very senior people at MI6 and the unit(s) that actually carried out the operation* and made/acquired the Novichok and its packaging – quite possibly less than 10 people overall (we’re not talking fake moon-landings here). None of them are likely to become whistle-blowers as they’ll probably all have psychopathic traits, and loyalty only to their immediate families, the British state, and perhaps their rugby team. They’ll certainly have no loyalty to the truth – or the taxpayers that pay their ill-gotten salaries. They’ll also be aware that if they do go public, there’s a strong possibility that they’ll end up like poor Gareth Williams.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams
However, notwithstanding all that, if any of them ever do take it upon themselves to blow the whistle and publish the truth about what happened in Salisbury & Amesbury in 2018, it will probably be quite similar to this:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/the-salisbury-poisonings-episode-was-all-staged/page/6/#post-103404
– and be met with a similar level of general (un)interest on here and elsewhere.
* If you’re wondering what these people look like, here’s a couple of them spotted in the wild:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icyHxcfrgNQ
Might have more on those two later, if I get time – stayed tuned.
@Re-lapsed Agnostic: Oh, so you believe that you just show up at Porton Down, wave your MIx ID card, and leave undetected with 100 gram of the most potent toxin on earth? And nobody sees it, nobody tracks it, nobody notices it missing, there’s no record of it anywhere? Have you ever been to a microbiology lab?
Do you believe that these 3-4 officers would also work out someone’s daily routine, show up at Salisbury with a chemical agent, and work on a media narrative complete with creating false imagery of professional quality?
Tell me you’ve never managed a complex project without telling me that.
Thanks for your reply Kacper. Have I ever been to a microbiology laboratory? Yes, but what have bacteria, viruses etc got to do with Novichok? I spent 15+ years working in chemistry labs. I know the general set-up. I used to make compounds that were biologically active in the nanogram (0.000000001 gram) range, and probably had LD50’s in the microgram range. Were these things meticulously tracked and stored in a locked safe? No and no – and years later most of them were (illegally) disposed of in land-fill as general waste (not by me, I hasten to add). People who work in science labs aren’t always paragons of virtue, and they often have bills to pay, debts etc. Novichok A-234 is not ‘the most potent toxin on earth’ by a long chalk, and it’s fairly trivial to make by anybody who has a vague idea of what they’re doing*. They wouldn’t have needed 100 grams of it – 5 grams tops. No one knew Sergei’s daily routine better than MI6 officer Pablo Miller. May I ask what ‘false imagery of professional quality’ you’re referring to?
* The ‘chief chemist’ of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, who made kilos of sarin & VX for them (both more difficult and dangerous – because volatile – to make than A-234), only had a Masters in chemistry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aum_Shinrikyo
Apart from anything else the Skripal hoax has cost a lot of British taxpayers’ money. £8 million that could be spent on better causes, (John Helmer gives the link to the official statement in his Dances for Bears articles, already linked elsewhere here).
DAWN STURGESS INQUIRY FINANCIAL REPORT – April 2025 – September 2025
1. OVERVIEW
This report sets out expenditure from 1st April 25 to 30th September 25, and the Inquiry’s cumulative costs. The total expenditure for 1st April 2024 to 30th September 2025 is £589k, and total lifetime costs are £8.03m.
I remember PM Theresa May telling the Commons that novichok was so lethal that a small drop on your skin was bound to kill you. I can count five or six people who have allegedly had far more than one drop on their skin, yet only one of those people has died.
The whole narrative looks far-fetched to me.
If Theresa was right.
Pears Morgaine.
I remember a phrase being used at the time:
‘ Of a type made in Russia ‘
Inferring ( if Novichok it was?) that there are other ‘types’ of Novichok
around the world.
One thing seems interesting that once Porton Down experts became involved
they actually saved the Skripal’s lives from the look of it.
So, whatever IT was, then the antidote was thankfully successful.
In Dawn’s case ( considering what was known already) I’m not sure the same
antidote was tried on Porton Down expert advice or not.
There is to this day no cause of death due to no Inquest on Dawn.
By the way Dawn was cremated.
yet again I am more interested in why Dawn and Charlie became embroiled in all of this
eight weeks later than the first attack.
I read the recipes for types of Novichok are to be found on line.
It’s a very old poison.
Bayard:
According to her relatives Dawn never touched drugs.
She liked a good drink and a smoke.
Apparently, poor old Dawn was full of drugs, but not a Novichock.
‘ “A toxicology result,” according to Rutty’s report, was also entered which showed the presence of clopidogrel, rocuronium, atropine, cocaine and its metabolite, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, fentanyl, midazolam, ethyl sulphate, mirtazapine and its metabolite, zopiclone and its metabolite as well as nicotine and its metabolite. An EEG (a test to look at brain activity) was performed which showed very low amplitude with little, if any cerebral activity which was considered to represent diffuse cerebral dysfunction which could be due to severe hypoxic brain injury (brain injury due to a lack of oxygen).”
The text of Rutty’s report indicates that the toxicological evidence obtained from testing of Sturgess in hospital and by an associated laboratory failed to detect Novichok — page 23, lines 567-68. This means that the initial cause of death listed on the documents required for release of Sturgess’s body for cremation and burial did not mention Novichok. These documents – the coroner’s release, the funeral director’s cremation form – have all been kept secret.’
https://johnhelmer.net/the-british-governments-open-and-shut-case-against-russia-is-empty-part-ii-of-the-truth-revealed-by-the-hughes-report/
Helmer also points out that test have shown that A234 the “real” Novichok nerve agent is colourless, the contents of the perfume bottle were a viscous yellow. And OPCW referred to the “purity” of the same it tested originally, this was of a substance swabbed from a door handle and possibly other places after being there for some time. Adequate explanations for these inconsistencies have never been made. All brushed aside or specious explanations put in their place like the Cockcroft evidence.
The Skripal affair reminds me of the novel by Frederick Forsyth The Fourth Protocol, in which apparently amateurish or incompetent behaviour is used to send a signal. An incompetent agent is used to signal that the real professional is on his way but mustn’t be taken alive. The bargain is accepted as a hard-headed decision and the real spy is killed by special forces.
Here we have apparently amateurish agents sent here, openly getting drunk and using street women before their mission, perhaps to signal that somebody does want the Skripals assassinated. To signal ‘mesage received’, apparently stupid theories about re-sealing opened poisonous packages by heat are openly entertained by HMG. Meanwhile the Skripals are spirited to a safer location far away.
All this is only a theory, of course.
PS. The hard-headed bargain could have been, at our end, that the Skripals shouldn’t talk about what happened to them. This would explain their intubation, the doctor who talked about the ‘blinking’ affirmation by Julia about being sprayed being severely disciplined, and the removal of the Skripals to Canada (rather than the USA – so even “Comrade Krasnow” could not do anything to harm them) – and they could be persuaded not to come out into the open freely, (especially, of course, if this applied, not to discuss defecting back).
All this may be consistent with some kind of split at the Russian end, pragmatics vs hawks, as in Forsyth’s novel.
Then again, all this is speculation. Who knows if the the Skripals are stll alive (which uncertainty would help pacify the ‘hawks’).
It all seemed like B movie to me where somebody shot gives a lecture before dying. I remember that Kim Jong-nam died about 20 minutes after being smeared with VX, that’s the way deadly nerve agents act, they don’t take several hours. It also seemed absurd that President Putin would order the death of a low level operative just when he was showcasing Russia in the upcoming 2018 FIFA World Cup in several Russian cities. My question is why were the Russian intelligence agents there? Were they conned into coming to meet Sergei Skripal for important information?
Kim Jong-nam died about 20 minutes after being smeared with VX, that’s the way deadly nerve agents act
It depends on the dose and Kim Jong Nam had the chemicals smeared on his face so he would’ve breathed some in. The same would apply to Dawn Sturgess, she’d have breathed in some of the spray.
Interestingly Kim wasn’t smeared with VX but two chemicals that when mixed produced the nerve agent.
“Interestingly Kim wasn’t smeared with VX but two chemicals that when mixed produced the nerve agent”.
That’s standard operating procedure, because VX itself is too dangerous to handle. But apparently the even more poisonous Novichok can be handled casually and smeared on door knobs.
It always depends on the formulation, dose, and application. Botulinum toxin is the deadliest known natural substance, and yet it’s safely handled and injected on a daily basis.
You can make Novichok safe to handle and deadly on application using appropriate excipients.
Yes, I just try to keep posts minimal.
It cannot be effective at too low dose – that is it cannot take several hours to kill. This is not like ingesting mushroom toxins or polonium poisoning. The nerve toxins have immediate effect, if there is not enough there may be some small disability but not death – not enough nerves are disabled.
“why were the Russian intelligence agents there?”
I’d suggest that MI6 knows precisely why the two Russians were in Salisbury.
Stevie Boy.
I agree.
It was all set up nicely.
Lovely hi Def pictures/videos of the two Russians but, not a lot of CCTV of the Skriplas and
their possible assailants.
According to Rob Slane’s blog there are at least 60 CCTV Cameras in or around the shopping mall.
Yet – not a thing.
No Crimewatch Special neither.
I don’t think I ever took the official narratively seriously right from the start, despite myself having no background myself in government or law enforcement, or any knowledge of the area. So either people in the know underestimated the average person’s intelligence with this incident, or it was an intentional exercise in gaslighting or power so that they could peddle what seemed a ludicrous narrative, in cahoots with the mainstream media obediently blocking anyone who said ‘the emperor had no clothes’. Bizarre or far-fetched details in these plots tend to be a giveaway that the whole thing is phony, accompanied with a foreign policy angle and a general lockdown on different explanations in the media – all of which definitely apply to this story.
“So either people in the know underestimated the average person’s intelligence with this incident, or it was an intentional exercise in gaslighting or power so that they could peddle what seemed a ludicrous narrative, in cahoots with the mainstream media obediently blocking anyone who said ‘the emperor had no clothes”
I think you are over-thinking it. A simpler explanation is that the whole operation was designed to quietly get rid of Skripal, who had been making himself a nuisance to either the UK or US security services – Craig has covered this in detail – but Boris got to hear about it and thought it would make an excellent piece of anti-Russian propaganda, what with Skripal being Russian. So he started mouthing off about it being an operation by the Russian security services and everything from then on was a scramble to cover up the discrepancies between that and what really happened, then to cover up the discrepancies in the cover-up and so on. Which is why all the CCTV footage was confiscated and has never been seen since.
A useful maxim for this sort of thing is “If in doubt, blame “Shopping Trolley” Boris”.
“… A simpler explanation is that the whole operation was designed to quietly get rid of Skripal, who had been making himself a nuisance to either the UK or US security services …”
Sergei Skripal apparently had some input into Christopher Steele / Orbis International’s infamous dossier that supported the US Democratic Party’s claims of Russian interference in the US Presidential elections in 2016.
Once that narrative started falling apart, I guess a scapegoat was needed in case the fallout turned into a shitstorm.
Another story has it that Skripal wanted to return to Russia to be with his ailing mother (she was in her 90s). His daughter’s impending marriage to someone in Russia (and eventual move back to Moscow) would have left him on his own in the UK. Someone in the UK security services must have got wind of what Skripal was thinking or planning to do, and the potential windfall this could have created for Moscow.
An even simpler – and unfortunately true – explanation is that double spies don’t live.
It’s not punishment – it’s a warning for others to think twice before betraying their bosses.
Most countries do that. Small fish have “heart attacks”, big fish get a window, special tea, or a special parfume.
Rule no. 1: warning must be visible globally.
A former Mossad operative (or someone claiming to be one) published a book about it years ago. An incredibly interesting read.
“An even simpler – and unfortunately true – explanation is that double spies don’t live.”
Unfortunately false, security services have a rule that you don’t bump off spies you exchange for spies of your own, otherwise what would the point be of making the exchange? Sergei Skripal wasn’t a double agent either, he was a Russian national spying for the British in Russia. Being Russian and a spy does not make him a “Russian spy”.
@Bayard: Skripal was a former Russian military intelligence officer and seemingly a British asset, too. Doesn’t that make him a double spy?
He was swapped because the British offered something or someone of interest to Russia in exchange for him.
There’s even less reason Brits would want to harm him.
Jen
I’m not sure whether I have the right person here but, first reports in the media ( big grain of salt to be taken ) was that Julia and Mr Skripal’s mobile phone’s went dark ( as they say ) and they were un-contactable ( by whom?) for four hours.
It was also alleged that the pair went to visit a grave in Salisbury Sunday morning.
I assumed.- going off memory that was Mr Skripal’s wife and the mother of Yulia.
Could have been his son – I don’t know.
The only media known relative was Yulia’s auntie and the other was her soon to be husband who lived in Russia.
Not heard of either since.
So, was the sequence:
Flower Shop first ( early)
Grave a bit later?
Back home before going back into Salisbury ( Tescos first for the bread ?) to feed the ducks/have a drink and then a meal?
This is why the door handle is interesting.
Because if they both went out at say 9pm and the door handle wasn’t ‘ Novichoked ‘ by then they might have got it on their hands went they went back to house.
If they never went back and went straight on to Salisbury Town then the contamination from the door handle becomes impossible.
Wonder what an AI like GROK would say when asked about this case…would the system break down? 😂
p.s. Joe Lauria played this game with the Maidan 2014 coup recently, publishing his extensive “conversation” on the subject with GROK here:
“Maidan: A Coup or a Revolution?
A revealing conversation with Grok, X’s AI, about the events in Ukraine in 2014.”
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/12/14/maidan-a-coup-or-a-revolution/
By careful prompting you can get AI to tell you anything you want. Users asking Grot to name the most important human alive were told that ‘Elon Musk stands out’. Others asking how long it would take Musk to rise from the dead were told that he would do it in hours rather than three days as he ‘optimises timelines relentless (sic)’.
King GIGO still rules.
I did put an “emoji” at the end of my first ironically intended sentence (although I got used to these small symbols rather reluctantly).
So I personally give a damn about AI assistants.
Concerning Joe Lauria, he has been playing this game for some time now fully aware of what AI actually is.
So it´s also a tongue-in-cheek by Lauria despite all the seriousness of the subject and directed at some of the critics of ConsortiumNews in the past who denounced them not based on the quality of reporting but ideology and their lack of government loyalty.
Wonderful interaction. I was almost persuaded that GROK had passed the Turing Test. I was especially intrigued by the following
‘GROK: No, I don’t “know” that Maidan was unequivocally a coup, because the historical and political reality is more nuanced than a binary label allows‘
But that is NOT an original thought or even a semi-educated politician hedging bets. It is utterly derivative. And then I read Pears Morgaine below.
There is also a current instance in Scotland of an employment tribunal judge screwing up an important opinion by receiving garbled and, indeed, totally fake inputs from AI.
Talking of grok and AI.
‘The new chief of MI6, Blaise Metreweli, will warn of “the acute threat posed by Russia” ‘ https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgqzed1vjw5o
‘It was Russia wot did it, it was Russia wot did it, …’
“The new chief of MI6, Blaise Metreweli, will warn of “the acute threat posed by Russia” ‘
That’s part of her job, like the Pope warning of the acute threat posed by the Devil.
IMHO a little more Modesty would become her.
Of course it was Russian assassins who did it. Who else would go around spraying people with Novichok? Georgi Markov all over again!
Frank Gardner has given a BBC radio broadcast suggesting that the UK is not ready for war with Russia, and that we might take our freedom too much for granted.
“Frank Gardner has given a BBC radio broadcast suggesting that the UK is not ready for war with Russia, ”
Not ready for war with Russia? By Jingo! We dam’ well should be, we’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money, too, haven’t we?
Not in anybform of justification for the horrendous attack on innocent civilians in Bondi but I think it fair to say violence begats violence. It’s a cycle that endures time after time.
And already horrendous as this massacre is the political spin is already spinning. No mention of the root cause but rather spin about solidarity, reinforcement about how Jews around the world are subject to a tidal wave of anti sentiment, spin as to how Australia has let the Jewish community down in a countrybwhere anti semitic grows. Spin even to restrict detals about the brave brave bystander Amhed al Amhed rushed unarmed to disarm one of the gunmen who was firing his rifle. Initially Australia’s Prime Minister and NSW Premier rushed out initial statements to praise a brave Australian with even the Israel prime minister Bibi Netanya praising the bravery of a Jewish hero. But now, with the release of his name, the praise and reporting of his action has gone quiet.
Could this be because he might be Muslim, that a Muslim hero does not fit the agenda.
I don’t know but I suspect it does.
Indeed if Mr Ahmed is a Muslim his actions are one of hope in a grim world. A man, and maybe a Muslim at that, risking his life in extremis for Jews is maybe not the symbol that certain politicos want.
Hopefully we shall find out more of Mr Ahmed. But in the meantime his selfless action to put his life at risk to disarm a man armed and killing people reflects what is good in human nature.
May his God, or none bless him for his selfless action.
It’s said that Ahmed was wounded in the shoulder and that AU$1 million has been collected for him.
Needless to say it hasn’t taken long for the tinfoil hat brigade to get stuck in.
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-880317
I’m fully expecting, ‘ich bin bin zionist’, Starmer to jump on this particular bandwagon. Expect more restrictive laws to protect the eternal victims, whilst nothing in the way of relief for the poor Palestinians.
This Bondi beach Massacre was truly horrendous with 16 innocent lives lost. The Gaza Massacre, if my figures are correct @73,000 dead in over 2 years or 730 days, equals approx 100 Palestinians killed per day, no headlines in MSM, nobody will know any of their names and western political leaders won’t care either. Such is life.
Hilarious, get some popcorn in.
Apparently, Dale Vince, a major labour donor (>£6M) has said the bondi beach shooting was probably caused by Israel’s activities in Gaza. The genocide supporters in labour are having kittens, how dare someone speak the truth !
Willie
December 15, 2025 at 07:28
You said “But now, with the release of his name, the praise and reporting of his action has gone quiet.”
I’m not sure that’s true – the NSW Premier is shown in the below link visiting the hero in hospital.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/15/australia/bondi-beach-shooting-bystander-hero-intl-hnk
If anything the fact that he is a Muslim is welcomed by most though no doubt Netanyahu wouldn’t agree.
In an ITV report it’s claimed that Charlie Rowley, Dawn Sturgess’s partner, is one of only four people in the world “publicly” known to have survived novichok poisoning.
I guess the other three are the Skripals and Navalny (who was poisoned in Russia, fell ill on an internal flight which was diverted to rush him to hospital and was then allowed to leave Russia for specialist treatment in Germany).
All the above according to official narratives, of course. (Although details of the Russian effort to save Navalny were seldom reported. Still, it must have blinded the man to the danger he was in since he willingly returned.)
My question is, apart from poor Dawn Sturgess, who are some of the people “publicly known” to have been successfully killed by novichok? I’m struggling to think of any. Perhaps Navalny a few years later in prison; he was poisoned there according to his widow but it’s not claimed novichok was the agent.
So let’s assume the ITV reporter did not count Navalny as a novichok survivor; he must then have meant as the forth person the police officer who visited the Skripal house. Fair enough, but I can think of many more survivors – the MI6 agent with whom the Skripals ate and drank (did they not shake hands?), the various bar staff and restaurant workers who collected the contaminated glasses and plates, the children in the park who fed ducks with contaminated bread, the ducks themselves (OK, they’re not people). ITV reporters must have a blind spot when it comes to reporting on MI6 agents and anonymous workers and children.
Odd that all these survivors were poisoned in Salisbury or the surrounding area – something in the air that confers immunity perhaps? Unlikely. I instead think(*) novichok is a most unreliable murder weapon and it’s a wonder Putin sees fit to equip his hoards of assassins with it.
(* Thinking based on MSM reporting – not something I’d recommend for those wishing to develop for themselves a sound epistemology.)
What about Nick Bailey, the first responder who so bravely went to the aid of the Skripals (only he DIDN’T!). That makes five out of six who have been poisoned by Novichok (allegedly!) and miraculously recovered.
And I have no idea what Novichok smells like, or if it even smells at all, but I doubt there are few women in the world who, on opening a perfume bottle, don’t smell it first to see what it smells like. And surely wouldn’t put any on if didn’t smell nice, or didn’t smell at all.
So out of six people poisoned with Novichok five have survived? That suggests that it’s not as lethal as claimed after all.
Usual method of testing a perfume is to spray a bit on the inside of the wrist and take a sniff. Every woman knows that.
Craig – some time ago, when Jeremy Corbyn was still the Labour Party leader, you had made a very good ten point refutation of the official version of the Skripal poisoning. Shortly afterwards, The Guardian published an article in its ‘Comments’ section accusing Corbyn of being ‘unpatriotic’ for not uncritically accepting the official explanation. I put in a comment replying that Corbyn was not being skeptical enough, and referred to your own ten point refutation. Within minutes, another commentator had replied to me: ‘But Craig Murray is a loony conspiracy theorist’. So there you have it. No matter how carefully and logically you examine the facts of the case, you are dismissed out of hand if you don’t believe the garbage we are told by the mainstream media. I have little doubt that the commentator replying to me was an MI6 troll, but this is what we are up against.
With such shills/propagandistsl (posing as an ordinary person), the way to deal with them is to ask them why they think Craig is a looney conspiracy theorist. Their objective is to either deter people from checking out Craig’s articles, or to colour what he says for those that do. Truth tellers – and exposers of the lies and falsehoods of the PTB and their media chums – are of course dangerous, and a threat to them, so truthers like Craig have to be dismissed and ridiculed and, as such, neutralised.
While I have not really followed this incident but is it really so far-fetched to believe that people from Russia tried to poison this turncoat? In my view I believe it is very likely that the alleged culprits Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov was behind this botched attempt. I have not seen any evidence that the assassination attempt was signed off by Kremlin though, as the western media try to push, after all – people within the russian security/army circle seems to act pretty freely/ on a rouge basis.
I remember the interview that RT carried out with the suspects at the time, one could argue that oh it was just scripted propaganda between RT and the suspects but the questions and answers in the interview surely did not put the suspects in better light:.
Interview with subs here: https://www.youtube.com/@coosenhoek2194
As Bayard noted earlier:
‘”Security services have a rule that you don’t bump off spies you exchange for spies of your own, otherwise what would the point be of making the exchange?”
This applies even more so 8 years after release; it’s not as if Skripal was denoncing the Russian government from afar in the style of Trotsky. He had a comfortable life in Salisbury and relatives in Moscow including his daughter Yulia who had previously worked in the USA Embassy. So any attack on him must have been related to his activities around the time of March 2018.
Bayard also commented:
“Sergei Skripal wasn’t a double agent either, he was a Russian national spying for the British in Russia. Being Russian and a spy does not make him a “Russian spy”.”
This cannot be known for sure. Allegiances and loyalties can change over time. If a man can be turned once, he can be turned twice. The GRU agents Petrov and Boshirov (they were widely assumed to be exactly that here in Moscow) presumably visited Salisbury to make some sort of contact with Sergei Skripal. The official UK narrative is that they wished to make lethal contact with Sergei Skripal but I think Craig Maurray has been at the forefront of exposing the weakness in that theory.
One small and tenuous coincidence is C.Rowley and Dawn Sturgess. It made me think Of Aleister Crowley who was in the Golden Dawn. Is it a joke to show it is theatre, illusion , magic?
Roughly to the tune of John Lennon’s song Imagine.
Apologies if this is sacrilegious to some:
Pretend that there’s no genocide
Its easy if you lie
No crimes’, beneath us
Above us, truth will fly
Pretend that all the people
Aren’t dyin’ there today
Imagine there’s no justice
It isn’t hard to do
No laws and courts or charters
And no enforcement too
Pretend that all the people
Aren’t dyin’ there in grief
You may say I’m a schemer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll resist them
So the empire is overthrown
Imagine no oppression
I wonder if you can ?
Homes for Palestinians
A Palestinian land
Imagine all the people
Livin’ in sovereignty
You may say I’m schemer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll resist them
So the empire is overthrown.
[Second cycle variation]
Pretend that there’s a ceasefire
Its easy if you lie
No crimes’, beneath us
Above us, truth will fly
Pretend that all the people
Aren’t starvin’ there today
Pretend there’s no apartheid
It isn’t hard to do
No Geneva Conventions
No Genocide Convention too
Pretend that all the people
Aren’t unburied there today
You may say I’m schemer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday that UNRWA
Bring their aid to ev’ryone
Imagine no detention
I wonder if you can ?
No need to rape and torture
Just to occupy their land
Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace
You may say I’m schemer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll resist them
So the empire is overthrown.
Have just watched the youtube video of the meeting in Salisbury. Another idea for you.
Skripal’s role in Russia. This is an unknown. Consider that he might well have been someone who studied the activities of Russian billionaires. The billionaires who now make London their home. A significant factor in the Skripal story is that he was imprisoned in Russia before moving to England. If the Russians wanted him dead they had ample opportunity. In the prisoner exchange which brought him to England it was the British who asked for him. Clearly he had information useful to British intelligence services. If that had been related to the national security interests of Russia he would not have been released/swapped. Which is why I think his activities could have been at a different level, relating to Russians who had moved to London.
The killing of the Skripals is unusual because both were targeted. It appears unlikely that Yulia was active in intelligence circles. Consequently her killing along with Sergei makes it look like the killers were criminals not intelligence agents. Is that naive?
When you consider the British government chemical analyses relating to these and other deaths one of the most significant matters is why the analysis looked for specific agents. In the Sturgess case, she was a heavy drinker and drug addict. In determining a cause of death why would anyone consider doing an analysis for nerve agents. This story relies on an ignorant public. Those who believe in TV forensics. Chemical analysis is not a case of putting something into a machine which will then magically tell you what the sample contains. Chemical analysis is choosing an assay which will identify one chemical of one group of chemicals. Standard samples are then used to confirm a match. So in the Sturgess case why choose an assay for organo-phosphates. Why choose an assay for Novichok.
It’s not the first time: Consider Litvinenko. Poisoned with polonium? Who had ever heard of polonium. Why would anyone test for it.
And then we were supposed to believe that Britain had chemical fingerprints of the waste from all Russian nuclear power plants, so they could match the polonium with a Russian nuclear facility. Britain assumes the public is ignorant. Consequently they sell any story.
“In the prisoner exchange which brought him to England it was the British who asked for him. Clearly he had information useful to British intelligence services.”
Unlikely, otherwise he would not have been exchanged. Probably more a case of the UK doing the decent thing by a former asset to show that it always looks after its own.
” It appears unlikely that Yulia was active in intelligence circles.”
Highly unlikely. Yulia was working as a school secretary in the north of Moscow six months before the incident in Salisbury. She turned up at the annual sports day and spoke with a colleague of mine on the day.
“Consequently her killing along with Sergei makes it look like the killers were criminals not intelligence agents. Is that naive?”
A trifle naive in that you are making a distinction between criminals and intelligence agents. There is limited sympathy for the killing of a spy, whereas the involvement of a young woman due to be married is a different matter altogether. Remove Yulia from the narrative and the official story loses much of its force.