Why No BBC?
More than two weeks ago the BBC reported that the police had identified the Salisbury attack suspects via CCTV. Exactly which CCTV they are referring to is not clear, but obviously if it was from Sergei Skripal's house it would not have taken four months, so it is presumably from other cameras in the Salisbury area.
This report was based on anonymous sources and there was no official announcement from the government. Security minister Ben Wallace called it 'ill informed and wild speculation', so clearly he hadn't been told.
© Press Association/TwitterNo one told the security minister?
The BBC did not retract the story but they also did not follow up, and so far have not reported on the latest development, that the CPS and the government are requesting the two suspects be extradited. The Guardian, the Daily Mail and even the German outlet Deutsche Welle are all covering this, but for some reason the BBC is silent. Did they jump the gun on reporting the CCTV identification? Did someone in MI5 tell them to ignore an embargo on the story?
How many victims?
So far this year, five people have supposedly been exposed to novichok in the UK:
- Sergei Skripal, widely considered to the main target of the attack
- Yulia Skripal, his daughter
- Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey, who discovered the pair in Salisbury
- Dawn Sturgess, who later died in hospital
- Charlie Rowley
The British government is poised to submit an extradition request to Moscow for two Russians suspected of carrying out the Salisbury nerve agent attack that left one person dead and three injured, according to Whitehall and security sources.The Daily Mail's bullet-point summary reads:
It appears that both outlets have removed Nick Bailey from the official story, for no apparent reason. It is odd that he has given very few interviews that have provided no additional information, given his central role in the novichok/Skripal affair.
- Mother-of-three Mrs Sturgess died in hospital after spraying agent on her wrists
- Other three victims have been discharged from hospital and are recuperating
The deadly perfume bottle
The Guardian also reported the now-established (but nonsensical) tale of how Sturgess and Rowley came to be poisoned by novichok several months after the Skripals were poisoned:
Police and intelligence officers believe the novichok used to attack the Skripals on 4 March was applied from a perfume bottle sprayed or smeared on to their front doorknob. Both of them recovered.
Police are working on the assumption that the bottle was dropped somewhere in the city, where it was later picked up by Rowley, who gave it to Sturgess.For this story to be true the Russian assassins would have had to spray the Novichok onto Sergei's door handle then, for no obvious reason, dismantle the poison bottle (removing the spraying mechanism and thus risking exposing themselves to novichok), put it all back into a box they'd brought with them for some reason, re-seal the whole lot in cellophane wrapping, then discard it somewhere in Salisbury.
Where it would remain for four months despite heavy searches being conducted by the authorities.
Where it was then found by Rowley during a one-day trip to Salisbury, who despite finding a suspicious bottle in a town at the centre of Britain's most famous poisoning drama, gave the bottle to his partner.
As such, the police are working on an assumption that is utterly ridiculous, and doesn't sound like anything as careful or sophisticated as a foreign state assassination attempt. While the Sturgess/Rowley story has been used to try to bolster the case that the Russian government are to blame for all four (five) poisonings, for anyone paying attention it has done the opposite. A couple of months ago I was willing to accept the 'Russia did it' story as a possibility. Now, it is utterly ludicrous.
Beyond Bullshit
The Guardian also expect us to believe the following, without wondering about how likely it is:
Sturgess received a much higher dose than the other three after apparently smearing the substance on her wrists, having sprayed it from the bottle. Rowley's recovery was helped, according to a source, by one of the first responders being familiar with the nerve agent, having been involved in helping the Skripals.This is a detail I hadn't heard before, that one of the paramedics who helped Rowley was also a first responder to the Skripals call-out. I don't know how many ambulance staff are employed by Salisbury District Hospital but it has over 450 beds and covers call-outs to towns that are miles away. As such, the statistical likelihood that the same person would be called out to both Sergei and Yulia Skripal and Charlie Rowley is slim. It is also curious that it took so long for this detail to come out, and that it isn't attributed to any statement or official spokesperson, but to an anonymous source.
We're left with a futile, irresolvable conspiracy theory. 'Russia did it!' claim the British government, who have mostly reacted in the opposite way to how you'd expect them to react if Russia really did do it. 'Extradite these two suspects!' they demand, knowing that the Russian government will do no such thing. 'Present the evidence!' says anyone with a brain, which seems to exclude most journalists, and they are ignored by the authorities.
I hate to sound like I'm bored of this story because, quite honestly, it's the most exciting thing to have happened in this country in years, and that includes the revelation that the then-PM had sexual relations with a pig. But it's so far beyond bullshit, so excessive in its stupidity, that it has become a basic mental acuity test. Those who believe it should be sat in the corner with a dunce hat on, unable to vote in elections. Those who disbelieve it might actually have a chance at creating a reasonable democratic society.
Tom Secker is a journalist, Investigative historian, podcaster and author. Support him at patreon.com/tomsecker
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