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As Our Government Lies, Britain’s Media Has Given Up On the Truth
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It now seems Boris Johnson lied in regard to what he was told about the chemical agent used in the Salisbury attack. Speaking to international media only a few weeks ago he said Porton Down – the government’s leading chemical weapons facility – had been “absolutely categorical” about the providence of the weapon, saying “there’s no doubt” it had been produced in Russia.
As of Tuesday, we know Porton Down doesn’t hold that view. Gary Aitkenhead, the chief executive of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory – the organisation operating at the government site – told Sky News this week that the precise source had, in fact, not been identified.
This is important because while it is more than possible the agent used was manufactured in Russia and deployed by the Russian state, the basis of the argument used by the government has been revealed as demonstrably false. Previously they claimed forensic evidence showed almost certain Kremlin involvement. Now they are saying it is intelligence which has led them to such a conclusion. Labour’s Diane Abbott has said Boris Johnson misled the public. This appears incontrovertible.
Then there’s the issue of a deleted tweet published on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) account on 22 March. There too it was claimed Porton Down specialists had concluded the agent was of Russian origin. The source for that tweet was a speech given by Dr Laurence Bristow, Britain’s ambassador to the Russian Federation.
For now the FCO is saying the tweet was an error and, because it was composed in ‘real time’, “did not accurately report our ambassador’s words.”
Except it did. We know this because there is a video of Dr Bristow giving the speech where he details the same claims made by the foreign secretary to Deutsche Welle. In it Bristow clearly states there is “no doubt that this Novichok was produced in Russia by the Russian state”.
At the time Craig Murray – blogger and former British ambassador to Uzbekistan – wrote that an FCO source told him scientists at Porton Down were “unable to identify the nerve agent as being of Russian manufacture”, and were “resentful of the pressure being placed on them to do so”. Despite responses of ‘fake news’ across much of the establishment media, it now seems he was correct.
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