5 Facts BBC’s “The Salisbury Poisonings” Forgot to Mention
Kit Knightly
The BBC’s new drama “The Salisbury Poisonings” concluded over the weekend. A three-part story “based on actual events”, claiming to tell the story of the alleged poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in 2018.
It’s exactly what you’d expect. Schlocky tat. Poorly researched, badly written and woefully factually inaccurate.
The Guardian gave it four stars. Because of course they did. Because when you’re dealing with government-backed narrative everything that reinforces it must be described as having value. It’s one of the hallmarks of propaganda, that no story which supports the propaganda – however ridiculous – can ever be questioned, criticised or disputed.
There’s room for an in-depth review, and indeed Craig Murray has done a fine job deconstructing the series. But here, I just want to focus on everything they don’t tell you.
Here are five key facts the BBC simply forgot to mention.
1. Alison McCourt
Alison McCourt and her family were walking in Salisbury town centre when they came upon the Skripals convulsing quietly on a park bench in the early afternoon. They were, supposedly, the first people to discover the pair, and Alison and her family stopped to provide aid. Her daughter Abigail was given a special award.
There’s no reason for the BBC to omit this information.
Except that Alison’s full name is Colonel Alison McCourt OBE. And she’s the Chief Nursing Officer of the British Army.
Maybe the BBC thought that the Chief Nurse of the British Army strolling past during the (alleged) first-ever use of a “military-grade” nerve agent was just too unlikely to be believed. Which is fair.
Craig Murray, with his usual dry humour, likens it having James Dyson knock on your door asking for directions just as your vacuum cleaner breaks down. But it’s actually quite a lot less likely even than that. After all, Dyson vacuum cleaners do exist, and lots of people do own them, but – until March 2018 – “novichok” was entirely hypothetical.
Novichok didn’t officially exist in the real world at all, until it popped up just yards away from one of the few people trained to deal with it.
Weird the BBC wouldn’t mention it. But it gets weirder.
2. Toxic Dagger
Toxic Dagger was a military training exercise involving the Defence Science Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and 40 Marine Commando Brigade. It trains special forces on how to deal with chemical, biological or neurological weapons.
Toxic Dagger ran from February 20th – March 12th 2018.
Sergei Skripal was “poisoned” on March 4th 2018.
The DSTL headquarters is in Salisbury.
That Russia should attempt to use a neurological agent to assassinate a former double agent right smack dab in the middle of a neurological weapons training exercise is unlikely. That it should also happen in the same city where the exercise is taking place apparently proved too much for the BBC to handle.
Best to just ignore it.
3. Pablo Miller
Pablo Miller is a former soldier in the Royal Tank Regiment, a diplomat with an OBE, and possibly current MI6 agent. He lives in Salisbury and was Sergei Skripal’s handler.
Miller’s name was first mentioned in a report for the Telegraph in the days following the Skripal’s alleged poisoning, from which Miller’s name has now been totally removed.
It was later revealed by a Channel 4 reporter on twitter, that the government had issued a D-notice on “Sergei Skripal’s MI6 handler”:
About the only decisive public move by the authorities has been to censor MSM via a D Notice last week from fully identifying Mr Skripal’s MI6 handler living nearby…
— alex thomson (@alextomo) March 12, 2018
[For our international readers, a “D-notice”, is an act by which the government directs the media to not mention certain facts which they claim might somehow endanger national security. It is not censorship, they’re quite clear about that.]
Sergei Skripal’s MI6 handler being his next-door neighbour, and the subject of government gag, orders didn’t make it into the BBC’s drama either.
And neither did…
4. Mark Urban
Which is weird, because Mark Urban is a BBC employee. He is their diplomatic editor, and personally fronted much of the coverage of the Skripal case when it was breaking news. As Craig Murray points out, despite the series’ regular use of real news footage, and despite it being a BBC production, Mark Urban is never seen once.
He’s not even listed as a consultant despite literally writing the book on the case.
What’s doubly strange about this, of course, is that Mark Urban was in the same Royal Tank Regiment as Pablo Miller. In fact, they joined on the same day, from the same officer training course.
He revealed, months after the event, he had regularly been interviewing Sergei Skripal in the months and weeks before his alleged poisoning. He claimed it was “for a book”.
The book in question was released in October 2018 under the title “The Skripal Files: The Life and Near Death of a Russian Spy”. (The Guardian gave that a good review too).
What he would have called it, and indeed what it would have been about, had the poisoning not happened we’ll just have to guess. It would likely have been very dull, and not sold all that well.
5. Sergei Skripal (likely) still worked for MI6
All the talk about Sergei Skripal has been he was a quiet retiree, living out his later years in sleepy Salisbury. Of course, that narrative is somewhat challenged by the facts his MI6 handler is his next-door neighbour, and he’s just a handful of miles from the UK’s military research laboratories.
Mark Urban’s book gives us even more interesting details – such as the fact Skripal’s house was purchased for him by MI6, and he had a special phone he used to contact his “team” at UK intelligence.
All of this paints a picture of a man still very much employed, or least kept on the back burner, by British Intelligence.
The Blogmire has an excellent article breaking all this down, including asking the most pertinent of questions:
How conceivable is it that the house purchase by MI6, for one of their double agents, did not have some kind of security measures in place, including CCTV cameras?
Shouldn’t there be CCTV footage of the alleged assassins walking right up to the door and spraying/spreading/smearing the nerve agent on the door handle?
Of course, the BBC don’t ask this question. They don’t mention any of this at all, despite it all being in a book written by their own diplomatic editor.
Clearly, the makers of the program were given a brief: Take all these harsh angular facts, and force them together into some kind of coherence. Obfuscate where you can, invent when you must.
Their job is to spread a digestible story.
As such, they leave out everything that could implicate the British state, or anything which challenges the story on even the most basic rational level.
They don’t explain how the most toxic substance in the world only affected 5 people in four months, despite contaminating a hotel room, a restaurant, a pub and at least two trains. They don’t explain why, even after one of their officers was taken ill, Salisbury police were guarding the Skripal’s house without any protective equipment.
They don’t mention the ties to Christopher Steele and Orbis Security, or the original reports of fentanyl overdose being redacted after the fact, or that the bottle Charlie Rowley claims to have found was wrapped in cellophane (and therefore never opened). Or any of the other myriad details which render the “official version” obvious, absolute nonsense.
We’ll never know exactly who at the BBC decided to omit all these details. But we can make a pretty good guess as to why.
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Interesting about Urban and Pablo Miller. But it is yet another conspiracy theory. No. I believe Bellingcat who exposed the two Russian agents which was not a feature of this drama and much the worse for it Another fact. Off Guardian forgets to mention is that Off Guardian itself is pro Russia. Personally, I will never forgive or forget Vladimir Putin who ultimately is responsible for the appalling events in Salisbury which killed the innocent alcoholic Dawn.
Belingcat exposed nothing, they are a front for the scripters of Skripalgate. The fact that you believe this incoherent pretence of a story shows you may be from Belingcat itself and not an objective observer.
Trolls always personalise their disagreements.
So lot to occur over your amazing blog. Excellent post. I was always checking this blog, and I’m impressed!
Daftar Situs Judi Online
Where are the Skripals now?Are they alive? Why haven’t we heard from them apart from a totally scripted uninformative set up interview with Yulia? She talked about wanting to return to Russia. Is she under house arrest somewhere? These are questions that need answering. But the UK Government will never answer these.
Absurdity no. 1) The UK has more surveillance cameras per capita than any nation on Earth or close to, yet they’d have us believe that an MI6 house donated to a Russian spy in their employ would somehow not have any.
Absurdity no. 2) Knowing that the UK has more surveillance cameras per capita than any nation on Earth or close to, these inept Russian assassins sent by an inept Putin devised a clever plan to wipe the doorknob of the MI6 house donated to the very same Russian spy in their employ.
Those two simple observations alone are enough to tell me that the bats in Salisbury’s belfry eagerly bred with Washington’s wombats in a frankensteinian scientific first.
Don’t forget that Pablo Millar is Co-director of Orbis International. And who is the other director? That would be Christopher Steele of the infamous Steele Dossier. Millar, Steele and Skripal were all in Moscow in the 1990s……curious, eh?
Curious as a stinking carcass washed up on the shores of gullibility.
The one thing in all these facts is you are missing the point.
Putin must have authorised this act.
or are you, on his behalf, suggesting it was not Russia?
No. 6 The duckfeed.
Skripal, dripping with the world’s most dangerous nerve agent, parked his car and shared bread with three young boys, feeding the ducks.
Some 10 days later, when the door handle dosing fantasy was revealed, the Counter Terror team decided to interview the boy’s and their parents.
When the CT team initially viewed the CCTV, the boys were not at risk, but they then became in mortal danger, because the door handle had been sprayed.
TPTB work with scripts. Covid is a script, even many religious texts are scripts. 911 was a very intricate script. Skripal is a script. His handlers were working on a script we call the dirty dossier. We have to discuss their scripts. We must grasp their IDEA. Only then do we have a chance of knowing what needle to look for, in what haystack. Only then will information make any sense at all. As Theodore Roszack said: Even great discoveries start as observations and insights and theories not by putting bits of information together. Later they may find information that corroborates the idea. As Jerry Day says the scientific priest class is no different to any other priest class: In 1100 AD a man would put on a priest robe and tell you that God has told him that you should hand over your money. I know… Read more »
Skripal was a cover story. Christopher Steele, author of the Dirty Dossier, employed Pablo Miller, handler and next door neighbour of Sergei Skripal, through his company Orbis Business Intelligence. What’s the betting that Skripal had input to the pee-pee dossier? The British were the driving force behind Russiagate. If that became common knowledge, Skripal was to be poisoned to distract from Britain’s role …. as in ‘Putin lashes out at the noble spies and journalists who have exposed his secret control of Donald Trump’. The pee-pee dossier was such BS that not even the Corporatist Mockingbird Media would touch it… they had to give it to Buzzfeed, who published it in Jan 2017. Over the next year, something is going on with Steele, Miller and Skripal because in Mar 2018, the Skripal poisoning script is put into effect. Given the scriptwriting abilities of Steele, and the… Read more »
All good points Kit. Just a few small add-ons. I believe Toxic Dagger ended on Feb 20th, so not actually overlapping. but the teams involved were all keyed up to “go live” when the Salisbury circus started two weeks later. HdBG was closely involved too, and made the vital link with the Syrian Douma CW stunt on April 7th. Not to mention the OPCW, which of course the BBC also failed to mention. Colonel McCourt is no longer Army chief of nursing, and given her experience dealing with Ebola in 2014, in Camp Bondsteel and in Iraq, I was thinking she would turn up in the current Coronavirus circus, specially where the army was involved. It’s surprising the authors of the “Poisoners of Porton” series didn’t talk to the people at Spire FM who awarded the local hero prize to Abigail McCourt. It is also strange that in your photo,… Read more »
I do support the position of this article.
However, ‘Novichok didn’t officially exist in the real world at all, until it popped up just yards away from one of the few people trained to deal with it.’ sounds like a non sequitur to me
Then read more. Novichok was at best a theorised entity, claimed to exist by a defecting Russian scientist, but never, apparently, actually manufactured, or even verified to exist, prior to the Salisbury incident. Novichok, in Russian just means ‘new stuff’. Possibly someone’s joke.
Wow, that’s some serious disjunctive posting that completely buried the thread.
Did one of the earlier posts step painfully upon a few toes or get close to an inconvenient truth?
Novichok was produced in one of the xxxxistans, i can’t remember which one, after the fall of the soviet union the US ‘helped’ them shutdown the plant, you’re not telling me they and UK didn’t take samples which would explain how it looked exactly like soviet made novichok, it’s more likely us killing a useless asset who’s just costing money, for the americans to take the heat off Trump who was in the middle of his own democrat invented collusion episode
Uzbekistan.
strikeback mentioned Novichok months prior to this even in one of its episodes
Greetings from Finland. Below are contents of FCO-MOD -funded Integrity Initiative -document titled “Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia responsible?” that gives outlines to the official narrative. To wit: First Novichok-story was written by Dan Kasczeta, who is a member of Integrity Initiative. Integrity Initiative is a project of Institute for Statecraft which also gets government-funding. “Sergei Skripal Affair: What if Russia is Responsible? The Narrative: Russia has carried out yet another brutal attack, this time with a deadly nerve agent, on someone living in Britain. Use of the nerve agent posed a threat to innocent British subjects, affecting 21 people and seriously affecting a police officer. This is not the first time such an attack has been carried out in the UK. The murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006 using a radioactive substance, polonium, has been proven to be the work of the Russian state; and a… Read more »
Do you have a link to the Integrity Initiative document?
I made a pdf´s for my personal use as I envisaged that that kind of stuff shall disappear from the internet/external sources. The text of this particular document is all there in my previous comment. There are other documents concerning the Skripal case like assessment of their Twitter-campaign success etc. ——– SKRIPAL TWITTER ROUNDUP 23.03.18 Chris Hernon Stephen Davies letter still getting play New ‘proof’ there was no nerve agent is that Nick Bailey isn’t dead or seriously incapacitated Backlash against Russia and those who congratulated Putin – Lithuania considering expelling Russians ‘Proof’ Search on ‘Stephen Davies Salisbury’ https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=stephen%20davies%20salisbury&src=tyah Jimmy @JimmySecUK Corbyn supporters are now slandering and mocking Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey for the crime of not being sufficiently injured whilst serving the public. https://twitter.com/JimmySecUK/status/976902098209181699 “It was a mafia group that bought it in the 90s” Leo Strauss @DrLeoStrauss As both Mirzayanov… Read more »
also this: SKRIPAL @GicAriana FollowFollow @GicAriana More Let’s not forget that #Russia also poisoned former #Ukraine President #Yushchenko in 2004. Like all of its tactics, #Moscow relies on its tried and true weapons. Russia may change its poisons, but its attempted and successful assassinations always bear the #Kremlin signature. Mig Greengard @chessninja 15h15 hours ago Mig Greengard Retweeted ArianaGic/Аріянॳць And @vkaramurza, who will be speaking at PutinCon tomorrow, has survived two poisonings for his opposition to Putin. https://twitter.com/chessninja/status/974395336558088198 @Biz_Ukraine_Mag NATO belatedly connects the many dots and publicly accuses Russia of waging hybrid war against the democratic world https://twitter.com/Biz_Ukraine_Mag/status/974572752236634113 http://reut.rs/2Gyvacy @GMLspokesman 2h2 hours ago ―What would the West do if it were to get serious about #Russian aggression? #Putin and his cronies have billions of dollars stashed in the West. Freeze the money. Seize the properties. Hurt them where it counts.‖ #RussiaSanctionsNow https://twitter.com/GMLspokesman/status/974572855030665216 http://wapo.st/2G00qDF… Read more »
and this: Notes from colleagues in the Baltic States who are monitoring Russia carefully. 18 03 2018 Russians are working flat out across the region to exert influence wherever they have it, to get their version of the Skripal case into people’s minds. Their particular position is: “This is a judicial issue and there is no evidence that Russia did this”. They are pushing everything towards “Procedure”, demanding facts, hard proof, access to the evidence etc. “If you can’t produce this, how dare you blame us?” this gets quite a lot of traction, especially with the Russian speakers. We need to check how it goes down with Russian diasporas elsewhere in Europe. Of course, in reality, this was a military operation, all done in the clear understanding that the attack would be investigated. So, they will have tried to leave no such evidence, and may even have left false… Read more »
and this: INTEGRITY INITIATIVE SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT PERFORMANCE Social media channels are indispensable for any project that wants to make an impact in the wider information space. The Integrity Initiative has had a Twitter account since its inception, but the project members did not have time to focus a large amount of effort on it. The situation changed when a dedicated person was assigned to run the account. The content has largely been retweets of, or comments on, other users’ tweets or articles tweeted from newspapers and other sites. Being active in the relevant space brings some engagement; tweeting in a distinctive, human and consistent voice garners more users; and tweeting our own content should boost our profile even further. Our most successful tweets have caught the attention of high-profile users with the right subject at the right time. Attracting the support of big Twitter names will allow… Read more »
SKRIPAL CASE IN ITALY PRO RUSSIA REACTIONS AND DISINFORMATION Update October 2018 – 1 – SKRIPAL CASE IN ITALY – PRO RUSSIA REACTIONS AND DISINFORMATION INDEX SKRIPAL CASE IN ITALY – PRO RUSSIA REACTIONS AND DISINFORMATION ………………………………………….. 1 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 2 CLUSTER 1 – REACTIONS BY/ON PRO-RUSSIAN OUTLETS/JOURNALISTS………………………………………………. 2 CLUSTER 2 – PRO RUSSIAN POLITICAL REACTIONS……………………………………………………………………………… 3 CLUSTER 3 – PRO RUSSIAN REACTIONS BY/ON TRADITIONAL MEDIA OUTLETS…………………………………….. 4 CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5 ANNEX …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 6 – 2 – INTRODUCTION Reactions to Skripal case have followed a well-known pattern in the age of internet and social media. The first reactions of many Italian social media users were not based on analysis or reflections but mostly on the ideological positions assumed before the 4th March poisoning. Therefore, are not surprising the skeptical reactions of many users towards the linkage of the Salisbury attack and Moscow. Moreover, to place… Read more »
ROUNDUP 21.3.18 Russians continue to throw out various, contradictory theories Feeling that the West’s response has been weak, which will encourage Putin to push on Lot of comment about how the West needs to kick out dirty Russian money Some momentum for World Cup boycott The “Let them talk” (Пусть говорят) programme on Russian Pervy Kanal is normally devoted to scandals and sob stories. Last night it featured various experts discussing Skripal. Of course they blamed everybody else and contradicted themselves (‘Novichok never existed’ ‘Novichok definitely existed but….’). Something which was new to me though was an attempt to link Skripal’s, Yushchenko’s and Litvinenko’s poisonings to Porton Down. https://www.1tv.ru/shows/pust-govoryat/vypuski-i-dramatichnye-momenty/po-sledam-skripalya- chto-to-nechisto-v-solsberi-pust-govoryat-vypusk-ot-20-03-2018 Glasnost Gone @GlasnostGone Re #MH17 & now #Skripal attack. Welcome to Russia’s distraction propaganda. Moscow suggested Sweden, Slovakia, Czech Republic & Britain were most likely source of ‘Novichok’ nerve agent. Now Russia’s ambassador… Read more »
There´s even more but they´re mainly twitter-performance assessments discussing who said what and where and how to contradict it + who journalist in theit team wrote what article. As I said, I made pdf´s for my personal use and can post them to Off-Guardian if they email me.
pmsl what a load of bollox, russia already stands out on the world stage without this nonsense, which sounds more like a plan worked out by blojob johnson and gavin williamson after a drunken night out
I agree with you. Most of the Integrity Initiative -material is a load of bollox 😉 Then again it is understandable as it is produced by a ideological group of Russofobics with a mission to control the Narrative, paid by FCO, MOD and Nato.
How do I know? It is explained in one the their documents.
we know cos their output makes Johnny English films look like he’s James Bond… and i don’t mean when one of the other frauds played him… i mean Sean Connery! lol like a bunch of public school boys have written it… oppps nail on the head! while drinking lashings of ginger ale!
For those interested in another view, here is my alternative theory, which I posted on another blog in December: I have an unusual theory – and I want to stress that it is nothing more than that – that Yulia Skripal herself might have been the poisoner. I first formulated this idea in the Summer. Respectful discussion of the issues raised is requested. I have never believed that “Novichok” or any other nerve agent was involved in the poisoning of the Skripals. Initial reports suggested Fentanyl and that still seems the most likely poison to me. Yulia Skripal, when interviewed after the poisoning had a tracheostomy scar. This is not consistent with nerve agent poisoning. Nerve agents are extremely toxic chemicals which poison by (paraphrasing wikipedia now) “disrupting the mechanisms by which nerves transfer messages”. So you can be asphyxiated by the action of a nerve agent simply because your… Read more »
To this I added some additional points: 1. Sergei Skripal came to the UK as part of a “spy swap” in 2010. I am quite sure that the Russian Federation would have wanted to ensure that the agreement was honoured and that Skripal and the other people who were exchanged would be left alone. 2. That is to say, I am suggesting that Yulia Skripal – if it was her – was not acting on behalf of the Russian Government who would have tried to prevent her from carrying out the poisoning had they known about it. She was acting alone. (The timing of the poisoning so close to the World Cup being hosted in Russia would also make it extremely unlikely to have anything to do with Russia, given the political ramifications of such an action.) 3. I have mentioned that Yulia’s mother and brother are dead. They are… Read more »
There followed some discussion at length, but I don’t think it would be appropriate to repeat it all here. I was able to explain all the discrepancies, and while this is just an idea – I won’t get too upset if you don’t like it – I think it’s a plausible one.
This sort of evidence-free making up of explanations only serves to provide the elite with further ammunition to discredit any criticism of official narratives by throwing around terms like conspiracy theory.
I’m no friend of any “elite” mr Hayes, but I know that some people (especially nationalists who want to break up the UK) like to pin it all on the British.
I just think it may have been a convenient excuse for the government and it’s allies to stoke Russophobia.
You say “evidence free”. I suggest you read the whole thing on the original blog before making such an assertion.
Please point to where I said “conspiracy theory”.
I never said that you said conspiracy theory.
Steve. You mentioned the phrase, I didn’t. I don’t believe it was any sort of conspiracy. I don’t know what happened. I came up with my alternative theory as it seemed to work. I don’t pretend that it is definitely true.
It is simply not valid to say, Steve, that “this sort of evidence-free making up of explanations only serves to provide the elite with further ammunition”. TPTB work with scripts. Covid is a script, even many religious texts are scripts. 911 was a very intricate script. Skripal is a script. His handlers were working on a script we call the dirty dossier. We have to discuss their scripts. We must grasp their IDEA. Only then do we have a chance of knowing what needle to look for, in what haystack. Only then will information make any sense at all. As Theodore Roszack said: Even great discoveries start as observations and insights and theories not by putting bits of information together. Later they may find information that corroborates the idea. As Jerry Day says the scientific priest class is no different to any other priest class:… Read more »
Bill Rawls
Cannot verify original page on archive.org as the article is behind a paywall… “Pablo Miller” sounds like a pseudonym a teenager would come up with.
Another silence is the issue of what the substance was that allegedly poisoned the Skripals. The government and the corporate media state that it was novichok, the world’s most deadly nerve agent. But the case in the Court of Protection, which was brought by the government, with the Official Solicitor (ie, government) acting as the respondent tells a very different story. The case included a witness statement from Porton Down’s biological analyst as to the substance. According to the judge, that statement identified the substance as a “nerve agent or related compound”. This is a long way from identifying the substance as a military nerve agent called novichok from Russia. So in parliament, the prime minister asserted that the government knew it was novichok from Russia, but in court it could only assert that it was a nerve agent or related compound. And this was an uncontested case heard in… Read more »
I’m not sure if “novichok” is necessarily the worlds most deadly nerve agent. How would you know? But the reason for bringing it up was in my opinion to pin it on Russia and Vladimir Putin, the “official” enemy. Surely if Russian intelligence had carried out the attack they would have used a poison that couldn’t easily be associated with them. Although I am not against the United Kingdom as such, I am nevertheless, deeply disappointed by the aggressive attitude of our government and it’s allies in military intelligence towards the Russian Federation. They seem to be stuck in the 1980s with their “cold war” attitudes. When this was first reported it was stated that it was believed to be fentanyl, which is certainly not a compound in any way related to novichok. It’s a synthetic opioid. So more akin to heroin and morphine, only apparently far more potent. I’ve… Read more »
You appear to have completely misread my comment. I did not say that the Skripals were poisoned by novichok. Neither did I say that it is the world’s most dangerous nerve agent. These claims are fundamental assertions of the official narrative – a narrative that is so full of inconsistencies, contradictions and absurdities that no rational person could reasonably find it credible.
No, you are taking my comment as criticism, which it is not.
This is hard work! I quote you:
“I did not say that the Skripals were poisoned by novichok.”
I NEVER SAID YOU DID!
And I was making an open comment about novichok, not criticising you for what you said. I gave you a thumbs up, but I have removed it.
This is a discussion board where relevant ideas can be expressed openly, not a forum for aggressive point scoring.
Excellent review, Kit 🙂
Another ‘fact’ which has just occurred to me is that Charles Rowley’s brother gave an interview to a British newspaper, in which he claimed Mr. Rowley had broken the perfume bottle of Novichok while he was attempting to fit the applicator; that it had broken in his hands, and that was how he became exposed. But he just washed his hands, and it was Novichok begone. Well, maybe that was a different story – in this one, it broke in his hands after his girlfriend had applied it to her wrists and then handed it to him – perhaps she thought he might like to try some, too. You never know; this reporter couldn’t even get her name right in three tries. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5978565/Bottle-containing-Novichok-broke-nerve-agent-victim-Charlie-Rowleys-hand-brother-claims.html In any case, the bottle somehow broke, which served as an explanation of how Mr. Rowley was contaminated as well. The same bottle which… Read more »
John Helmer points out, in his excellent dissection of the miniseries, the process known in the writing trade as retconning, or retroactive continuity – reviewing a story and inserting events and explanations which will help it make sense without changing the conclusion. For instance, the BBC appears to have invented the ‘fact’ that Detective Nick Bailey entered the Skripals’ home when they were not at home themselves – getting contaminated in the process, according to the storyline – by nipping next door and borrowing the spare key from the neighbour. A key that was never mentioned before, but a bit of retcon which was necessary to get Detective Bailey, the Skripals and the alleged assassins all at the same doorknob in the proper sequence. http://johnhelmer.net/too-crooked-to-lie-straight-in-bed-bbc-tries-to-right-the-wrongs-of-its-skripal-story/ The BBC miniseries was absolutely vital to paper over inconsistencies pointed out by the public which caused the official narrative to attract… Read more »
Initially, so called Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey was a “first responder” to the Skripals on the park bench and that was how he became contaminated. A week later, he was not a first responder, but had gone to Skripal’s home, which is had entered by the back door.
Hats off to the genius who put this together – not the perfume, the ad.
As a Manufacturers’ Note could be added: “No ducks were harmed in the process”?
Perhaps the BBC could employ Zhana Nemtsova to help their declining viewing figures. She certainly had Boris squirming by simply asking a few pertinent questions .
Soon after the Skripal ‘event’ , Boris (as Foreign Secretary) embarked upon a European tour to drum up anti rusky sentiment .
German Public Service Broadcaster DW News had him in to hear his sales pitch.
With levels of insincerity that only Prince Andrew can match he tells the proven big fat lie @ 5.45 and babbles incoherently throughout the interview.
Bear in mind that Zhana Nemtsova is the daughter of Boris Nemstov the Russian opposition leader who was murdered outside the Kremlin. She is a fairly fierce critic of Putin.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZgGujo2h3A&w=1236&h=695%5D
It’s all a bit redundant – Russia’s eager adoption of the Coronahoax means that Salisbury was most likely panto for the masses.
Kit Nightly doing a Brilliant job of rehashing the Skripal story again (and almost totally destroying it. because it is a load of complete and utter bollocks) which I wrote about on Craig Murray’s blog the day before he wrote about it, then deleted what I wrote – and did his own account of events… So no New news There, but both Kit and Craig, are being programmed by The BBC – who apparently put out this drama… Which like Madeline McCann – is yet another distraction..from what is really going on, to take our minds off for a bit, from the Current World Attack on us The attempted impoverishment of the USA and Europe by lunatics in BANKS AND the MILITARY. I hope Craig Murray’s court case goes well, but this time I am not sending him any more money, but wish him well. Might send Off-G a tip… Read more »
Do you still fly gliders?
Kit, nice change from the usual covid 19 but has the Murraysian “British state” narrative stuck to it’s bum like a dry clinger. I think it’s bad form to name drop like that so frequently. I started an off topic thread on this fascinating subject on Murray’s blog before I fell out with his anonymous attack dog. I would expect it is still there for those who are interested. It posits an alternative theory that I have never seen anywhere else. Namely that Julia Skripal was herself the poisoner. (An attempted suicide and murder). It’s just a theory. I know I lack Murray’s undeniable Establishment grandeur and charm, but those with a genuine interest in trying to figure out what happened in Salisbury in March 2018 might find it interesting. It should be easy to find. There was some lengthy discussion and I managed to explain all… Read more »
You stalked the poster Tatiana John. I hold no favours for present or former mods on Craig’s site. I take no sides. Did you make personal advances to Tatiana? Did you send her gifts? Did Tatiana stop responding to you? We both know the answers to my questions John.
Can we not rehash real or supposed personal grievances re. ‘Tatiana’ (whoever s/he may be) on Murray’s blog. It’s been discussed here at length already and doesn’t seem totally appropriate.
Can you address John Pretty with your remarks please? He’s the one who dragged his personal issues into your btl (yet again), not me.
What has this got to do with you?
It has to do with me that you repeatedly use OffG’s btl to try to discredit one of our most important spokespeople because you were banned from his site for stalking a female btl poster. It’s bad enough having to fend off attacks on our leading lights from professional security services trolls, without having weird, grudge-bearing pervert stalkers like yourself doing the same.
Thank you.
I’m not going to answer this. My conscience is clear.
John Pretty, Well done.. You escaped The Craig Murray clan too, but I bet you still read it. I do… But it is the Summer Solstice tonight – and they did have some great bands on at Stonehenge, and well yes it was bit like you might have read in The Daily Mail and The Express at the time.. a bit of afghan black maybe, but my other ex (and I really did love her) – don’t do the LSD. Even she had never done it with me – but she gave me the girl guidelines. Number 1 You have got to feel safe and secure and be with someone you really love – who will love and protect you, and you have complete faith in. She will look after you… So when we got back home I asked my new girlfriend (now my wife) – should we try it?… Read more »
Many thanks Tony. I appreciate your posting.
Well obviously there wouldn’t be decent security in place like CCTVs on the front door because this pathetic excuse for a government has always been a bunch of cheap-skate bunglecunts
BoJo’s not in charge.
We are now ruled by King Mark Sedwill.
You’ve been watching too much UK column. Cummings is in charge and Boris approves because his sick old dad has filled his head with Darwinian tripe – probably why he bleaches his rapidly thinning thatch.
Obviously, the BBC is run by Josef Goebbels.
Talking of the beeb, they are up to their usual stuff and nonsense on the coronavirus. They have ‘fact checked’ the safety of The Muzzle:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/53108405
The BBC wouldn’t know facts if it hit them up the face.
At the time of the Salisbury incident, a consultant at the hospital said outright, that no patients were admitted with nerve poisoning . He penned a letter to The Times (I think) stating this fact. Whatever happened to him? Apparently his name was removed from the hospital board . There was also a police officer – Nick Bailey – said to have been infected, yet survived . Where is he?
I have an image of the letter in the Times written by Stephen Davies (Consultant in Emergency Medicine, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust) which reads as follows:
” Further to your report (“Poison exposure leaves almost 40 needing treatment”, Mar 14), may I clarify that no patients have experienced symptoms of nerve agent poisoning and there have only ever been three patients with significant poisoning. Several people have attended the emergency department concerned that they may have been exposed. None has had symptoms of poisoning and none has needed treatment. Any blood tests performed have shown no abnormality. No member of the public has been contaminated by the agent involved.”
The Times badly edited Dr Davies letter, and gave the impression that there were NO nerve agent poisoning. Furthermore, he confirmed to that the three patients mentioned in his letter “were poisoned with a nerve agent, confirmed by blood tests and symptoms.”
LOL. No intelligent person would believe that. Yes I have seen that given as an excuse. Absolute bollox.
Nick Bailey is alive, and was interviewed recent on TV, and by several newspapers. Read the news.
Links?
Pray tell Lesley, who does Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey work for?
Fentanyl was probably the poison. That was the poison that was first reported in the media until the government got involved.
On the other contrary, I would have thought that a really good investigative journalist might certainly find out exactly who at the BBC decided to omit all these details. Naming names is undoubtedly our best option for justifiably ridiculing this scum and stopping it in its tracks.
Laura Kuenssberg was caught lying about Jeremy Corbyn (she used the tried and tested propagandist technique known as quote mining). Even the BBC Trust had to denounce her. However, the BBC “rebutted” the criticism, stating that she was an excellent journalist. She was promoted and presented with awards. These people are shameless.
Absolutely. Another problem is that there are so many of them (which is no coincidence either…) that they can hide behind each other. That’s the way they manage to feel safe.
But the rotten egg and tomato remedy can still be dramatically effective: https://youtu.be/-Pio9ZzYdPQ
And no doubt being paid handsomely (courtesy of the licence-payer) while doing so.
Last year the BBC received £5 billion of public funding. The television tax should be abolished.
Kussenburg is not a journalist. She has become the Secretary of State for Tory propaganda.
She is a disgrace to herself, her family, her profession and her country.
Your article is the biggest load of shite I’ve ever read. Written by an ill informed conspiracy theorist…or a Russian source?????
Perhaps you would care to provide us with a critique so we can all share your insight?
You know damn fine you are spreading anti-Western filth. If you want to mix facts and fiction in a story then carry on. Are you based in St Petersburg office, or a branch?
Try harder. And say hello to your MI6 supervisor.
Don’t flatter it.
Duh! It was penned by Vladimir Vladimirovich himself! Obvs!
You sound like a penis erectus hogs mains….c u next time
You are correct. But you are wasting your time. I suspect a Russian source somewhere along the line.
Jesus wept, GM, obviously the 77th & Langley are employing REAL morons, these days.
Q. – But, do you comprehend why, son?
Consider yourself branded as a piromaniac: talk about gaslighting!
Address the factual BBC deliberate OMISSIONS, you complete wanker.
You cannot, so carry on wanking… coz’ your comment was the biggest
Waste of space and jism ever read by me@OffG.
I’m sure everybody here already know that Steele was the guy who was hired by the Democratic National Committee back in 2016 to dig up dirt on Trump, right? His dodgy-dossier alleging that the Russians had a ‘pee tape’ of Trump served as the initial basis for justifying the FBI’s warrant to spy on an opposition presidential candidate, which ultimately led to the Russiagate Impeachment Saga.
Strange coincidence, eh?
The BBC don’t deal in facts.
They can no longer be considered media as media in Britain no longer exists.
It’s 24/7 lies and propaganda which we are forced to pay for if we watch any live tv.
They push the official narrative of everything and try and discredit anyone challenging it.
They are willing to lie and slander and make wildly false accusations against these people.
They don’t report of any other viewpoints.
After the recent controversy with Fawlty Towers episode John Cleese summed the BBC in one finely delivered sentence – ‘BBC are cowards, gutless and beyond contempt’.
Bravo Mr Cleese.
This morning on BBC News Annita McVeigh presented a piece on deaths because of COVID 19, which she pointed out are not counted as COVID 19 deaths, so COVID 19 deaths are under-counted, she asserted. The BBC provided examples of these “because of COVID 19” deaths. A child in Columbo with leukaemia who was denied treatment. A woman in Italy who had stroke and was denied treatment. According to the BBC, people who die as a result of being denied medical treatments are all COVID 19 deaths.
These people are destroying satire.
Now you’ve done it!
DunG will be along shortly to chastise you soundly.
I wonder if he works for the BBC.
“The world is madder than any satire on it.”
G. K. Chesterton
Western society is under attack from all angles (by the you know whos). The MSM are on board with this.
To call them “cowards” is a bit weak. They are the enemy inside the gates. They are vicious traitors.
watch an old man in a chair
“media in Britain no longer exists.”
off guardian excepted?
and uk column, lockdownskeptics.
There is still media in this country, but not all that much in the mainstream.
What I meant is there is no proper journalism within the mainstream media.
Off Guardian and Uk Column have indeed been excellent.
Must checkout lockdownskeptics
Toby Young’s project. He’s still kind of mainstream, but is very much against the official lockdown narrative.
Sergei Skripal helped Christopher ‘man of’ Steele day-dream the scenes in the Pee-pee Dossier. Probably over a pint in The Mill. Skripal’s handler Pablo Miller works for Chris Stalin’s company Orbis Business Intelligence. That’s Obi. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Jedi, a member of a rare and ancient group of warriors who strike with expert precision and incredible power. Sir Alec Guinness played Obi-Wan. He also played George Smiley, a career intelligence officer with “The Circus”, or Mi6. Smiley is wisdom. Smiley is sage. No bull. That’s how intelligence consultants think. They’re failed novelists. So are spies. Hire Christopher Stalin, get Obi, get Jedi precision, get Guinness, get Smiley, get Insight. Did Christopher Stalin sell a crock of shit? Did the fancy bear goose Trump? Chris and Pablo take it to the bank, cut out Sergei. He’s pissed. Skripal spots an opportunity to escape Mi6’s clutches and… Read more »
Speaking of “narrative collapsing” (or collapsed) the current virus boogaloo has nearly obliterated exposure of “Russia-gate,” Barr and Durham quivering in a corner somewhere, dribbling out bits of the falsity/absurdity that composed that particular narrative. It’s not getting much attention.
Steele’s masterpiece as hand-in-glove with Clinton Foundation; Mifsud as Intel agent; Papadoupolis duped; Flynn railroaded; Comey and Brennan conniving, etc. Don’t see much on all this these days.
Also “the November election” has been shuffled off into a corner and silenced, only issue how far ahead Biden is in the polls (as was Hillary 2016). What happened to all the candidates? In lock-step on the lockdown?
Failed novelists yes–the level of “intelligence” in promotion of these schemes and the corresponding reception to them by JQ Public is disconcerting. It doesn’t seem to matter how weak and in-your-face/arrogant the pretexts progressively are.
Yep. Josef Goebbels showed us the power of total propaganda: it drove Germany over a cliff.
yes… novichok, the very lethal poisonous substance but the Skripals didn’t die. Oh and er…btw where are the Skripals?
My guess is their ashes are on a rubbish tip not far from a crematorium used by the security services. I can see no value for the security services in keeping them alive.
RIP the Skripals.
New Zealand, allegedly.
Middle Earth.
According to John Helmer, writing in December 2019 they are at RAF Fairford, an American air base in Gloucestershire. He’s written a lot about it, but I’ve not read much of his stuff recently.
http://johnhelmer.net/category/skripal/page/2/
Both sides are still allowing the FIRST lie to go unquestioned. The sides are arguing about details while accepting the FIRST lie.
There is no independent evidence that any poisoning happened, and no independent evidence that any substance at all was involved. The only thing we know from independent witnesses is that the Skripals APPEARED to be unconscious or drunk. Everything else comes from official sources. So the simplest and most LIKELY explanation is that the entire mess was a pure stageplay. Intel agencies constantly stage fake emergencies (like viruses) and fake disasters. They’ve been doing it for thousands of years.
Remember that the Skripals were EMPLOYEES of British intelligence, with a handler constantly present.
You are right. There us certainly no actual given evidence that the poison was there in the first place, not to mention the fact that they used the ‘scary enemy’, Russia. Classic False Flag Event right there.
On Sergei Skripal’s house having cctv, I recall his next door neighbour saying that Skripal had cctv and used it to monitor anyone approaching his house. However, I can no longer find this detail anywhere. I suspect the reason for that is because Skripal’s cctv would have recorded the GRU assassins in the act, if the official narrative were true. Another detail that is missing relates to the ducks. Sergei gave some boys bread to feed the ducks and one of the boys actually ate some of the bread. However, none of the ducks died and neither did any of the boys. Yet if the official narrative were true, they were all contaminated by the world’s most deadly nerve agent. Moreover, the authorities didn’t even bother to look for these potentially fatally contaminated boys for weeks. The ducks also played a part across the pond (please forgive the… Read more »
They don’t explain how the most toxic substance in the world only affected 5 people in four months, despite contaminating a hotel room, a restaurant, a pub and at least two trains.
They don’t explain it, because the answer is obvious – in an astonishing act of foresight and organisation, the security services ensured that anyone who might have been affected was provided with the PPE which is keeping us all safe from the coronavirus.
See? They really have got our best interests at heart! Take that, conspiracy theorists!
gwyn please!!! one cannot have a conspiracy theory. it is either a conspiracy (eg guy fawks) or a theory (hypothetical).
The 17th-Century False Flag that was perpetrated in order to persecute Catholics! Indeed!
No, there really was a plot to blow up parliament. Robert Catesby was the leader.
Yeah, there was a plot, but there were also rumours of possible government involvement in allowing it to happen/setting it up.
Various properties demolished due to ‘contamination’ by ‘novichok’?
“the novichok traces in that East London hotel”
and yet,
the hotel is still standing?
Novichok has a consciousness and is able to pick and choose who it affects on command from its masters. Much like covid-19, strangely enough.
🙂
Not only is the hotel still standing. The authorities knew the hotel was contaminated (according to their story) and for months said nothing to the hotel manager. For months (according to their story) they let workers and guests use a site they knew to be contaminated by the world’s most deadly nerve agent, a nerve agent more than eight times as lethal as VX (the British deadly nerve agent).
Yes, it’s the usual government sponsored MSM bullshit for the sheeple to eat.
I do not see how anyone who has paid attention to the story can find it credible. For example, when Theresa May and Boris Johnson were asserting that they knew Putin had sent two GRU officers to assassinate Skripal, Neil Basu, was asserting that the investigation had not identified any persons of interest, let alone suspects. So we were supposed to believe that the government had evidence of who was guilty, but refused to share that evidence with the police investigation.
“Their job is to spread a digestible story”…….You’re being too kind there Kit. Their “job” is what the BBC do constantly and that involves disinformation, news by omission and lying to endorse government propaganda. In short they are a cancer in our society.
What’s the bettting this “drama” wins some sort of an award
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.metro.news/novichok-on-a-cigarette-butt/1131371/amp/ This wasn’t mentioned
I’ve read Murray’s blog but not seen the fictitious BBC drama. However, I couldn’t help thinking about the paramedics. Did they arrive before or after the Army’s head nurse? And what made them think a well dressed couple, middle-aged and elderly, would have taken fentanyl? From the BBC’s fiction: “The paramedics assumed that they had overdosed on fentanyl so they gave them a shot of Naloxone, which happens to combat nerve agent toxicity. Plus, it was cold, further inhibiting the speed with which the substance took effect.” As soon as fentanyl was mentioned I immediately thought of the Moscow theater hostage crisis where fentanyl was thought to have been used. I also considered that it was possibly the actual toxic substance behind the Skripal’s collapse and may even have been the totally unrelated, accidental cause of death of Dawn Sturgess.
Bravo! 👏👏👏
Corona-chok and Novi-virus can liquidate brain cells while leaving low-level motor skills intact, as demonstrated by Matt Hancock.
Incoherent narratives are evidence of incompetence not malice, according to the pop mech skeptics and the self-described adults in the room. So let’s assume the State Narrative is well-intentioned but incompetent.
It was clear 18 months ago that the Duck feeding (CCTV) rendered impossible the Doorknob contamination on Skripal’s Mi6 house (no-CCTV).
TL;DR just read points 6 & 7 – https://www.theblogmire.com/summing-up-the-official-claims-in-the-salisbury-poisonings-weighed-in-the-balances-and-found-wanting/
One wit on The Blogmire quipped of the “D” or DSMA Notice — Duck’s Shan’t be Mentioned Again
“… as demonstrated by Matt Hancock.”
🙂
I was astonished to discover yesterday that Matt Hancock is the actual secretary of state for health. I’d assumed that the reason he was on telly so much was that he was just filling in for someone who was off sick, that no one else was available, etc.
Having this dimmest of dim bulbs in such a position of power makes a severe dent in any claims we might have to first-world status.
Yes, an oxy moron if ever there was one …
A lot of this was covered here: https://www.richplanet.net/richp_genre.php?ref=278&part=1&gen=99 it bears some repetition, however.
Very interesting. How that name Christopher Steele resonates . . .
A reminder folks this is metaphysical a D notice related to half a pentagram half a circle 4 as in D also relates to door – subconscious even down to the characters name has meaning scripted perfectly also reminder folks for hypnotism suggestion as in hypnotism to keep working the suggestion/s reforces the programmers of the spell that usually comes in today from pretend independent you tubers re forcing the spell lie programmed as they are also hypnotized themselves repeat repeat repeat also called regurgitated. the TV and netflicks shows will also have snippets of the programme running through them at the time and also what is known as predictive programming which is the wrong term, it’s projection perception using the subconscious to help create the multi different realities they want The biggest net-flick show that started the Monday after the above was Killing Eve and remind us what that was… Read more »
ame yes but I don’t think most of the readers here understand what the various media blogs use mind programming( sub conscious and symbols) . IE they do not know about controlled narrative by using fake sites left that limits debates and the information. Or there are alot of shills commenting here now and the off Guardian’s childish like and dislike buttons are rigged for the purpose (like in facebook) .
any site endorsing politicians is Diciperati (the Deceivers) knowingly or unknowingly..
Some of the worse are the ex conspiracy turned political endorsers then mixing both. in today’s age saying my team is better than your whilst in lock down is the biggest form of magic on one self at the moment due to the stakes involved better wake the fuck up. thoses testing stations are not there for show.
the political you tuber will be the prefects/grasses in the prison camps
down votes may means the down voted have something to say
enjoy your solstice