SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Novi-Fog™ In Fleet Street

moon of alabama

Having been caught lying and covering up its lies about the Salisbury incident, Theresa May's government peddles new unbelievable stories to the press. This may divert the immediate attention but time is not on her side. The story will further unravel. What else can she do?

The British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson decide to attack opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn:

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A pity endeavor. It were the lies of Theresa May and Boris Johnson which convinced the other countries, not any factual evidence:

BERLIN (Reuters) - Britain needs to show proof that Russia was behind last month’s poisoning of a former Russian double agent and his daughter in England, the German government’s coordinator for Russia said on Thursday.Gernot Erler said pressure was rising on Prime Minister Theresa May’s government after Britain’s military research centre, at Porton Down, said on Tuesday it could not say yet whether the nerve agent used in the attack had been produced in Russia.
“That contradicts what we had previously heard from British politicians and will certainly raise the pressure on Britain to show further proof that the traces plausibly point to Moscow,” Erler told German broadcaster ARD.

Armin Laschet, head of Germany's most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia and an ally of Merkel, also questioned (German) the British behavior (my translation):

If you force almost all NATO allies to solidarity, should you not have assured evidence? You can stand towards Russia however you like, but in my the studies of international law I learned of other ways of dealing with states.

The international loss of trust for the British claims is serious. Unless the UK government comes up with a very plausible story with some real evidence behind it no serious European official will lend it any further support.

Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, who's skepticism convinced 165 countries to not fall for Boris Johnson's lies, says that Johnson has to answer "serious questions".

The spin-masters of the May government throw Novi-Fog™ into Fleet Street to prevent that.

Operation 'Save Boris' feeds new sensational but implausible stories to the papers. It claims that top secret intelligence, which can noteven be shown to the opposition leader, proves that Russia tested how to smear nerve agents onto doorknobs:

Police said last week they believed Russian ex-double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned at home in Salisbury via their front door.Now agents have confirmed that Putin's scientists carried out experiments looking at its effectiveness on door handles before the March 3[sic!] attack.
A security source told the Daily Mail: "We have intelligence that goes beyond Russia made Novichok and stockpiled it.
"We have evidence that they also explored using it as an assassination weapon including on areas such as door handles and everyday objects."

"Putin's scientists" experimented and found that

two persons leaving a home will both touch the exterior doorknob and
reliably infect themselves with a
rain-resistant, sticky "military grade" nerve agent which
several hours later has
a similar sudden effect on a 33 year old healthy women and a 66 year old man with serious diabetes.

That indeed sounds quite plausible to me (not).

More Novi-Fog™:

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The Times was told that the spies found the source of the nerve agent. But the front-page piece is extremely vague and makes little sense:

There are two different sources in the above: 1. "Security services" which say they know the source but neither name it, nor pin its location to Russia and 2. a Whitehall spin-master who points to Russia.

Some photo editor made sense of what the "security services" said and introduced the Times piece with a picture of a likely source:

via D'Aramitz - bigger

Behind the wall of Novi-Fog™ the outrageous claims the government earlier made about the case get pushed down the memory hole.

Meanwhile Victoria Skripal, a cousin of Yulia Skripal, claims to have been called by Yulia and told that everything is fine. In response(?) the Metropolitan Police claims to have a statement from Yulia in which she also says that everything is fine. Neither claim is verifiable and both might well be false.

Theresa May's government is in serious trouble. It tries to spin its way out of its lies. But the time is working against it. The fog will rise:

The OPCW investigation, to which Russia was denied access, will not help May to make a case against Russia. In the best case for May it will come up with a similar result as Porton Down. It might say that some nerve agent was used on the Skripals but that it is impossible to pin it to a source. It might say that it can not identify the nerve agent at all. It may find nothing.
Yulia Skripal will have to be released from hospital and is likely to fly home to Russia. She will talk. She is unlikely to know anything that could help May, but might well say something that lets the whole story fall apart. She will have to watch her back.
Britain's allies are miffed. They have been lied to and damaged their relations with Russia for no good reason. The Brexit negotiations will become more difficult as Brussels has lost trust in any British claim or commitment.
Russia will continue to attack May while she has lost the protection from her allies.
The upcoming local elections could well go against the Tories. In 2004 the Spanish Prime Minister Aznar blamed the Basque ETA for the Madrid train bombing. When that was exposed as a lie he lost his lead in the polls, the election and his job. When the Skripal case broke and was pinned to Russia the Tories rose in the polls. But the fall after the exposure of the lies will probably be of equal size.

What will the British government do to get out of this dilemma?

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Previous Moon of Alabama reports on the Skripal case: