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Newsnight admits what SKWAWKBOX said 2 days ago: not just Russia can make Novichok

  • Russia probably still most likely source of the toxin
  • SKWAWKBOX broke news two days ago that Novichok production does not require state-level facilitites
  • BBC Newsnight programme ‘reveals’ the same from a second expert source

Two days ago, the SKWAWKBOX published comments by Professor David Collum, group head of organic chemistry at the world-renowned Cornell University. Professor Collum was withering about the government’s claim that only a ‘state actor’ could produce a Novichok-type nerve agent, calling them ‘liars’ and elaborating:

The compounds are simple as hell to make. Doing so without killing yourself would be more challenging but within the capabilities of many laboratories.

sb collum.png

In spite of the impeccable credentials of the source, as usual some couldn’t resist attacking the information as ‘fake news’. But corroboration was to come from a perhaps-unexpected source.

The BBC has rarely departed from the approved government line on the Salisbury attack, even going so far as to hide evidence exposing Boris Johnson’s lie about the Novichok issue during a televised interview and its Newsnight programme is often among the most culpable, but last night it was the exception, as a correspondent told viewers of a conversation with chemical weapons expert Professor Alastair Hay:

Perhaps feeling vulnerable about the difference between the official line and what he was about to relay, the BBC’s correspondent underlines Hay’s status as a ‘very level-headed chemist’ – and begins by fudging the issue, describing the professor as ‘on the fence’ about the issue.

But by the end of the piece, he lets out the unvarnished and unequivocal truth:

chemically it’s clear that the Russians are not the only people who could have made this nerve agent

No fence-sitting, just a ‘clear‘ statement that the Russians are not the only people who could have made the Salisbury toxin.

Which is exactly what Professor David Collum told us – and we told our readers – two days ago.

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13 comments

  1. It is possible that the Conservative Government will fall as a result of the Skripol affair, so it makes sense that media outlets which have so far acted as government mouthpieces will begin to distance themselves from Theresa May and her government.

    This interview indicates that broadcasters are becoming increasingly aware that the government’s narrative is implausible and that it is impossible to keep holding the line without causing severe reputational damage to the BBC, or to any other broadcaster which continues to attempt to hold the government line.

    1. I think the severe reputational damage has already been well and truly done to the BBC by itself . It’s “toast” as far as I am concerned for them and the Tories .

  2. The official version of events surrounding the deaths of the Skripal’s pets is so far beyond parody as to be worthy of a nonsense category all of its own: post-coherence.

    1. I love this! Post-coherence. Last year we had post-truth and fake news. Now this has morphed into a world where they try to pass all kind of meaningless nonsense into our heads. perfect.

      1. You’re welcome, just trying to clarify the atmosphere of increasingly fevered derangement!

  3. “An antidote was administered promptly.”

    Ah, so there IS an antidote after all. That’s another aspect of the ‘official’ story that wasn’t true – they were saying for the last month that there is no antidote for the Novichok family of nerve agents.

  4. I just turned the box on about an hour ago, and seeing as how the Press Review on Sky News had just started a couple of minutes before, I thought I’d just quickly check out what they were discussing. Well, I should have guessed! They were discussing the Skripals, and it was nauseating beyond words. I’ve only watched the Sky News Press Review several times before, the first time being a few days after the Salisbury thing hit the headlines, and on two of the occasions that I happened to watch it, it was the guy from the Mirror and some well known Tory talking-head whose name escapes me now (and I assume that the two of them always appear together).

    Anyway, on this occasion it happened to be a woman called Christina Patterson, who was so over the top it was unreal, and a guy called Matthew Syad, who is a Times journalist, and it was just the most nauseating reiteration of the goverment’s black propaganda (and of course Repetition is itself a black propaganda technique!).

    I mean I don’t even know where to begin! In fact it’s just come on again, but it’s not a repeat of the earlier one, and they didn’t spend as long on the Skripal article (in The Times) – ie that they’ve been offered to go and live in the US, where of course they will be safe from that evil Mr Putin.

    The Times guy starts by reminding us of the evil Mr Putin’s threat to bump off such people – ie traitors – but they BOTH conveniently omit to mention the fact that the evil Mr Putin could have had Sergei Skripal bumped off anytime during the years he was in prison there (prior to the spy swap and coming to live in the UK in 2010), but then THAT didn’t fit with their agenda of course.

    As I’ve said before, the propagandists seem to think we’re all Sun readers and who they can dupe with ease!

    And of course not only did it not occur to the evil Mr Putin to have Sergei Skripal bumped off whilst he was in prison in Russia, but he instead waited for eight years until three months before the World Cup Football AND two days before the celebrations to mark 100 days to go until the football starts, and he thought he’d wait until Sergei’s daughter went to visit her Dad, and then bump them both off together in Salisbury. I suppose his thinking was that if he waits until Sergei’s daughter goes to visit him and do it THEN, then it would have more of an impact on the general public to target the daughter as well than it would if it was just a spy on his own. And no doubt the reason he thought to use Novichok is because they had an old bottle of the stuff lying around that had passed it’s use-by date, so they thought they may as well use that rather than throwing it in the rubbish bin.

    It’s funny really, but I can’t really remember what I thought at the time about the Litvinenko thing, but I’m pretty sure I just accepted the official version, and never considered any other possibility. But THAT has all changed NOW, in the light of this present complete and utter farce. These people really seem to think we were born yesterday, and DON’T seem to realise that the fact that they use Repetition to (try and) convince us that it must have been the evil Mr Putin, is ITSELF a give-away, apart from all the implausibles of course.

    And needless to say, Murdoch’s Sky News is just a black propaganda organ choc-a-bloc full of propagandists.

    1. “But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.”

      Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf

    2. This morning on the news we have Boris accusing Russia of “launching an avalanche of lies and disinformation”, which is of course itself a Big Lie, and part of the avalanche of lies and disinformation the Tories and the MSM have been spewing forth for many, many months against Russia and Putin on the one hand, and about Jeremy and his supporters on the other.

      Oh, and as predicted, we now have another fake chemical weapons attack in Syria. Who woulda thought it eh! Such perfect timing!

      Keep the plebs emotionalised (otherwise they might start using their Reason and critical thinking and, as such, see through all the lies and smears and disinformation and demonisation and distortion etc, etc, and we wouldn’t want THAT now would we)!

  5. So for several weeks the black propagandists who concocted and contrived the whole saga were (trying to) emotionalise us plebs with the terribly sad and tragic news that the Skripals will be lucky to survive and even if they do they will most likely never be the same again etc, etc, and NOW they emotionalise us with the news of their “miraculous recovery”.

    The fact that THEY – ie those who perpetrate these gargantuan deceptions – are completely devoid of human emotions, plays no small part in it all of course.

    We live in a Psychopathocracy, and always have done.

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