More on #AmesburyNovichok

VIDEO: IS BBC ALREADY PRIMING US FOR GOVERNMENT NARRATIVE ON #AMESBURYNOVICHOK?

Skwawkbox,

5 July, 2018

BBC News’ 10pm programme tonight started with a striking assumption on the part of the BBC:

Within seconds of announcing that the critical illness of Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley was caused by exposure to the same Novichok nerve agent used to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal in nearby Salisbury, Hugh Edwards was telling us, as if simply factual, that the Skripals were the victims of a ‘Russian attack’.

Yet neither Porton Down nor the OPCW were able to pinpoint a source for the toxin that poisoned the Skripals and it is now well known that Novichok has been successfully manufactured in other countries.

The BBC is not the only media outlet leaping to assumptions with unseemly haste. Although we were told at the time that Novichok has ‘very limited’ durability outdoors and the UK has experienced both heavy rain and a weeks-long heat-wave, a Murdoch journalist has already concluded that ‘residue’ of the Skripal attack is ‘the most likely explanation’:

The government’s Porton Down chemical weapons research centre, which is analysing the compound, lies almost exactly between Salisbury and Amesbury:

The OPCW identified the Salisbury Novichok as being of an extremely pure grade – more likely to be a laboratory sample than mass-produced, which is why the organisation could not narrow down the likely source of the toxin.

The residents of Pitton could be excused if they’re feeling nervous tonight, in case the Russians target them next.

But why is the BBC, along with other ‘MSM’, already guiding us to a Russian source instead of behaving like journalists and laying out the facts and a range of realistic possible scenarios?

The Amesbury Mystery

Craig Murray,

5 July, 2018

We are continually presented with experts by the mainstream media who will validate whatever miraculous property of “novichok” is needed to fit in with the government’s latest wild anti-Russian story. Tonight Newsnight wheeled out a chemical weapons expert to tell us that “novichok” is “extremely persistent” and therefore that used to attack the Skripals could still be lurking potent on a bush in a park.

Yet only three months ago we had this example of scores from the MSM giving the same message which was the government line at that time:
“Professor Robert Stockman, of the University of Nottingham, said traces of nerve agents did not linger. He added: ‘These agents react with water to degrade, including moisture in the air, and so in the UK they would have a very limited lifetime. This is presumably why the street in Salisbury was being hosed down as a precaution – it would effectively destroy the agent.'”

In fact, rain affecting the “novichok” on the door handle was given as the reason that the Skripals were not killed. But now the properties of the agent have to fit a new narrative, so they transmute again.

It keeps happening. Do you remember when Novichok was the most deadly of substances, many times more powerful than VX or Sarin, and causing death in seconds? But then, when that needed to be altered to fit the government’s Skripal story, they found scientists to explain that actually no, it was pretty slow acting, absorbed gradually through the skin, and not all that deadly.

Scientists are an interesting bunch. More than willing to ascribe whatever properties fit the government’s ever more implausible stories, in exchange for an MSM appearance fee, 5 minutes of fame and the fond hope of a research grant.

According to the Daily Telegraph today, the unfortunate Charlie Rowley is a registered heroin addict, and if true Occam’s Razor would indicate that is a rather more likely reason for his present state than an inexplicably persistent weaponised nerve agent.

If it is however true that two separate attacks have been carried out with “novichok” a few miles either side of Porton Down, where “novichok” is synthesised and stored for “testing purposes”, what does Occam’s razor suggest is the source of the nerve agent? A question not one MSM journalist seems to have asked themselves tonight.

I am slightly puzzled by the picture the media are trying to paint of Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess as homeless, unemployed addicts. The Guardian and Sky News both state that they were unemployed, yet Charlie was living in a very new house in Muggleton Road, Amesbury, which is pretty expensive. According to Zoopla homes range up to £430,000 and the cheapest ones are £270,000. They are all new build, on a new estate, which is still under construction.

Both Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess still have active facebook pages and one of Charlie’s handful of “Likes” is a mortgage broker, which is consistent with his brand new house. They don’t give mortgages to unemployed heroin addicts, and not many of those live in smart new “executive housing” estates. Both Charlie and Dawn appear from their facebook pages to be very well socialised, with Dawn having many friends in the teaching profession. Even if she has been homeless for a period as reported, she is plainly very much part of the community.

Naturally, there is no mention in all the reports today of MI6’s Pablo Miller, who remains the subject of a D notice. I wonder if he knows Rowley and Sturgess, living in the same community? It should be recalled that Salisbury may be a city, but its population is only 45,000.

The most important thing is of course that Charlie and Dawn recover. But tonight, even at this early stage, as with the entire Skripal saga, the message the security services are seeking to give out does not add up. Mark Urban’s piece for Newsnight tonight was simply disgusting; it did not even pretend to be more than a propaganda piece on behalf of the security services, who had told Urban (as he said) that Yulia Skripal’s phone “could have been” tapped by the Russians and they “might even” have listened to her conversations through the microphone in her telephone. That was the “new evidence” that the Russians were behind everything.

As a former British Ambassador I can tell you with certainty that indeed the Russians might have tapped Yulia, but GCHQ most definitely would have. It is, after all, their job, and billions of our taxes go into it. If tapping of phones is seriously presented as evidence of intent to murder, the British government must be very murderous indeed.

BBC propaganda continues here

Salisbury poisoning: Skripals 'were under Russian surveillance

Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were being monitored by the Russian authorities in the months before their poisoning, BBC Newsnight understands.

The government alleged, in a letter to Nato, that the Russian authorities had hacked into Yulia's email account in 2013.

I understand briefings given to UK ministers and allied governments suggested it went well beyond this.

Sergei and his daughter were poisoned in Salisbury in March.

With the police investigation not saying whether it has identified any suspects, four months after the Salisbury incident, the UK government's case against Russia is still based largely on secret intelligence.

Both former spy Sergei, and his daughter, had been monitored for some time before March this year - something found out after the poisoning.

Yulia's mobile phone has since been closely studied for signs of malware that could have allowed it to be used to track her whereabouts.

Questions remain though about whether any of the surveillance of her and her father was detected before the attempt, and should have prompted an increased level of protection