In the news

Where's that conversation happening?

Please don't say Twitter.

Interesting how quickly the conversation has swung to letting Russia off the hook because Boris is a blithering idiot.

where?

Who else is likely to be deploying a nerve agent against a Russian former spy, exactly?

Antifa! Everyone knows they're left-wing Nazis, so they're surely in the frame (and they shot up YouTube!)

A double agent?

I imagine they have more than one enemy.

There’s also been a huge backlash towards Russia over this... again plenty parties go benefit here.

Deputy head of the CDU, for one
http://m.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/russland-und-der-fall-skripal-armin-laschet-aeussert-zweifel-am-westlichen-vorgehen-a-1201224.html

Well, it's going to be a country with a highly developed chemical weapons program, or a client of said country. Realistically, the country which produced the chemical has to have given their blessing for it's use if a client country was involved.

Therefore, US, UK, Russia, China - at a guess.

Then it's a case of cui bono. I'd suggest that the UK doesn't have much to gain, the US no longer has anything resembling a coherent foreign policy, but the parts of the administration that would be able to do this are the parts that seem unlikely to attack an ally's major city with a nerve agent.

Russia or China, therefore - and I can't see a positive benefit in this for China.

Who else is likely to be deploying a nerve agent against a Russian former spy, exactly?

It seems too obvious for Russian intelligence to use their own nerve agent though. And everyone knows Russians can be bought - including those in control of these substances.

Well if it's specifically intended to be a just-deniable-enough message to other defectors (or to a domestic audience who are receptive to the message), then it's supposed to be obvious. Obvious but hard to prove definitively.

again plenty parties go benefit here.

... like the Russian political elite and FSB?

Other than deflecting attention from May, it's really hard to see who in the UK benefits? Her friends and colleagues? All stick the knife in when possible. UK politicians and businesses with their hands in Russian pockets? Seems to me they have more to loose from financial sanctions looming.

What would we, as the UK, have to use as our calling card? Kill the defector with bumbling incompetence, mixed in with a laser like focus on cutting tax for the rich?

Just listened to the whole BJ quote.

Yeah. He definitely said what he said.

Kill ourselves with bumbling incompetence

Let's face it we wouldn't even get the target unless it was some hapless DLA claimant and even then it would be crushing by the sheer weight of paperwork

SAS

... and a cover up.

... followed by an expose' and apology.

Nothing more British than an apology.

So you think the MO would be to make the victim disabled and then kill them with ideologically driven cuts?

Just wait for the target to get on a bike. Pow.

With all the fingerpointing, even if it was not Russia, they still need to explain how something that was supposedly destroyed by them is now turning up to kill people.

Of course, if you start with a tone like the UK and its friends, help may not be very forthcoming.
And if it was not the government, it could be embarrassing if it was stolen in Russia. So you'd need to have a hell of a lot more finesse than BoJo if you want to approach it in a friendly manner.

But very strong accusations with not a lot of substance feed the Kremlin propaganda machine for free. Free alufoil on the RT and other "news" pages for sure...

Maybe it's the black market, maybe it's a false flag, maybe it was the Russian government, maybe not, but the truth may be the first victim here.

Thankfully either the nerve agent isn't that lethal or the people administering it are shit fucking assassins.

Yeah, I thought that too.

Armed with weapons from James Bond and they can't even kill a pensioner and his daughter out for a stroll.

I'm surprised that people are surprised we made chemical weapons at Porton Down.

I know a guy who used to do PR for them.

PR for a secretive military facility? Must have been a strange job!

does the tory party have a muslim problem?

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-councillor-suspended-over-muslim-12303973

So it turned out the burglary / oap murder charge was actually just accross the road.! That's the murder tent visible from my bedroom window...
If you see a grumpy lady with a baby strapped to her pushing a talbot on sky news, that's my partner!

am sure Mrs @7ven loves being referred to as a grumpy looking lady

awaits news of a 2nd murder happening on the same road tonight

I posted this story about Novichoks before but people should have a read. Basically the whole point of Novichoks and other chemical weapons from that time was you developed two basic chemicals that could be easily hidden or produced in standard facilities that when mixed created the powerful nerve agent. This means they are easy to hide and easy to make even when you shut down all your specialist facilities.

Also, some of them were developed it seems specifically to ensure a slow and arduous death.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/m­ar/22/andrei-zheleznyakov-soviet-scienti­st-poisoned-novichok