Astonishing, our national broadcaster working hand-in-hand with the Russians to undermine, damage and impugn the credibility and standing of the Foriegn Secretary, Boris Johnson.
We heard today, on the BBC, that the Russians would actually welcome being blamed prematurely for the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter as they could use this to discredit later accusations. The above video is one from RT and has been edited to, as best as possible, make it look like Boris was directly linking Russia to the poisoning.
For the last two days the BBC has been happy to oblige the Russians telling us that Boris did pretty well outright point the finger of blame at the Russians in his answer in the Commons. This, the BBC told us, was highly reckless and irresponsible of Boris to do so without evidence….The Today show, the BBC’s flagship news programme and presumably staffed by veteran, experienced and intelligent people, also fed us this line. What we have been told Boris said and what Boris actually said are two completely different things…the BBC has invented a narrative that is entirely fake about our Foriegn Secretary…the Russians must be delighted to have such useful idiots working for them in one of the world’s most powerful and influential news organisations.
As said, Boris said no such things [read his comments in Hansard] and was in fact very guarded in making any accusations..the BBC knows this because it reported it, whilst still making the accusation, on the website….
The UK would respond “robustly” to any evidence of Russian involvement in the collapse of former spy Sergei Skripal, Boris Johnson has said.
Mr Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, are critically ill in hospital after being found unconscious in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
The foreign secretary said he was not pointing fingers at this stage, but described Russia as “a malign and disruptive force”.
How curious that both R4 news and 5 Live didn’t seem to know that…was it incompetence or wilfully feeding us misinformation about Boris?
Boris has been under constant BBC attack for every comment he makes…this no doubt due to the fact he is a popular political figure who is high profile in the Leave lobby and the BBC suspects to its horror, wants to be PM.
In contrast we have Amber Rudd, a hardcore Remainer, whom the BBC has been praising today for her moderation and unwillingness to blame Russia, the BBC delighting in quoting us this [linking it in contrast on the radio to Boris’ ‘reckless rhetoric’]…
Ms Rudd told MPs it was an “outrageous crime”, adding that the government would “act without hesitation as the facts become clearer”.
She refused to speculate on whether the Russian state might have been involved in the attack, saying the police investigation should be based on “facts, not rumour”.
Let’s have a look at what Boris said…it bares no resemblance to the impression you would have got had you been listening to BBC news on the radio for the last two days…Boris does not blame the Russians and says specifically it is too early to say who actually carried out the attack….most of his comments about Russia are in fact in relation to their other activities around the world…the BBC though makes a sly attempt to suggest Boris has linked Russia to the poisoning with this quote..’The foreign secretary said he was not pointing fingers at this stage, but described Russia as “a malign and disruptive force”.’
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(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on Her Majesty’s Government’s policy towards Russia.
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Hon. Members will note the echoes of the death of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. Although it would be wrong to prejudge the investigation, I can reassure the House that, should evidence emerge that implies state responsibility, Her Majesty’s Government will respond appropriately and robustly, although I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will appreciate that it would not be right for me to give further details of the investigation now, for fear of prejudicing the outcome.
This House has profound differences with Russia, which I outlined in the clearest terms when I visited Moscow in December. By annexing Crimea in 2014, igniting the flames of conflict in eastern Ukraine and threatening western democracies, including by interfering in their elections, Russia has challenged the fundamental basis of international order.
The United Kingdom, under successive Governments, has responded with strength and determination, first by taking unilateral measures after the death of Litvinenko, expelling four Russian diplomats in 2007 and suspending security co-operation between our respective agencies, and then by leading the EU’s response to the annexation of Crimea and the aggression in Ukraine by securing tough sanctions, co-ordinated with the United States and other allies, targeting Russian state-owned banks and defence companies, restricting the energy industry that serves as the central pillar of the Russian economy, and constraining the export of oil exploration and production equipment.
Whenever those sanctions have come up for renewal, Britain has consistently argued for their extension, and we shall continue to do so until and unless the cause for them is removed. These measures have inflicted significant damage on the Russian economy. Indeed, they help to explain why it endured two years of recession in 2015 and 2016.
As the House has heard repeatedly, the UK Government have been in the lead at the UN in holding the Russians to account for their support of the barbaric regime of Bashar al-Assad. The UK has been instrumental in supporting Montenegro’s accession to NATO and in helping that country to identify the perpetrators of the Russian-backed attempted coup. This country has exposed the Russian military as cyber-criminals in its attacks on Ukraine and elsewhere.
As I said, it is too early to speculate about the precise nature of the crime or attempted crime that took place in Salisbury on Sunday, but Members will have their suspicions. If those suspicions prove to be well founded, this Government will take whatever measures we deem necessary to protect the lives of the people in this country, our values and our freedoms. Though I am not now pointing fingers, because we cannot do so, I say to Governments around the world that no attempt to take innocent life on UK soil will go either unsanctioned or unpunished. It may be that this country will continue to pay a price for our continued principles in standing up to Russia, but I hope that the Government will have the support of Members on both sides of the House in continuing to do so. We must await the outcome of the investigation, but in the meantime I should like to express my deep gratitude to the emergency services for the professionalism of their response to the incident in Salisbury.
The BBC claims the mention by Boris of Litvinenko is also a direct accusation by him…..and yet they fail to mention that Labour’s Emily Thornberry makes the same comment in the same session minutes later…
As the Secretary of State says, the incident has disturbing echoes of the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko 12 years ago, and it comes after the exposure last June by BuzzFeed News of the fact that, since 2012, 14 individuals considered hostile to the Putin regime have died in mysterious circumstances on British soil.
As usual with the BBC it is one rule for Boris, one rule for everyone else. The BBC is definitely targeting Boris in an attempt to discredit him and no doubt with the hope that if they keep on portraying him as a disaster as Foreign Secretary May will one day be forced to sack him.
Al beeb ( toady ) was frothing at the mouth ( Nicholas robinson) demanding more must be done to Russian this time – even with an on going investigation
In fact it reminded me of the Brass Eye sketch where the paxo impersonator got two sides into a war . Comrade Robinson sounded like that’s what he -.al beeb wants
Personally I care less about “ Russian players” but I do care that some copper who got contaminated doing mouth to mouth could die .
As for Boris ? Who cares .
Fed – am with you in regards the innocent PC. I have no truck with traitors irrespective of the flag colour – but this could so easily have harmed many more innocent Britons and if Putin gets his rocks off on this sort of shindig then we should respond in kind. It will be the only thing he would take note of.
When I was young (a while ago then) I went to see a comedy called ‘The Russians are coming’. As I remember the plot, I think a Russian U-boat got stranded near the US coast and the locals got the wrong idea.
It comes to mind often now, since the Russians seem -well, to be coming -constantly. There is hardly anywhere they are not allegedly interfering by undermining voting, massing on some or the other border, or trying to kill people.
Some, or even all of this may be true, but we still await evidence. So far, still nothing conclusive about them ‘helping’ Trump; massing on borders is something two can play; what happened at Salisbury is -as yet- unclear.
I hold no brief for Russia, but I get suspicious when there is so much ‘noise’. I ask myself, is it an attempt at diverting attention?
Is there, for instance, an ongoing invasion (which obviously wouldn’t be referred to as an invasion) of Europe and/or the UK, which incessant noise about Russia is serving to obscure? Are there, for instance, a lot of landing craft laden with foreign young men, landing on the coasts of Europe? (The answer is ‘yes’, but it’s NOT the Russians and they’re not formally called ‘landing craft’). Seems, it all depends what you’re looking for… See where I’m going with this? Have I got it all wrong?
Blackwell, what we need now is one of your single line put downs in defence of the blameless BBBC, eh?
Avoiding al Beeb – caught the first 5 minutes of c4 news god help me. Some kraut EU politician waster wants to keep Europe together to respond to the Russians so Brexit is bad. I was drinking tea at the time and sputtered it with such a great link — because Of Brexit FFS.
I suppose when it comes to reprisals hmg will finally have a reason to close down RT – to keep al Beeb happy – with RT relocating to Ireland no doubt as a token of European solidarity .
I heard a woman from Buzzed interviewed the other day about this, claiming that lots of Russians in the UK had died in “suspicious circumstances” and pointing the finger at Putin.
I could make out that the only one of these that was definitely murder, was Litvinenko. If the Russian State wanted to kill Skripal: would they really do it in such an obvious way and murder his daughter too? When from what this reporter claimed, they could easily have had him “suicided” or done away with in some other way.
The entire scenario is all very strange.
Cui buono?
Get someone to slit their throats and shout “Alan’s Snack Bar”.
Win, win. It would get blamed on Norwegians with mental health problems, (Tory cuts!), concerns raised about carving knives on sale at Aldi, the public warned about speculation and ‘Islamophobia’ and all be forgotten about within a week, (part of living in Clegg’s vibrant New Britain).
I believe Buzz Aldrin was the second man on the moon. I believe JFK was killed by one shooter called Lee Harvey Oswald. I believe a group of Saudi Arabians flew jets into the world trade towers at the behest of Osama Bin Laden. I am 100 percent convinced neither Putin nor the Russians were behind this poisoining.
Beeb sky ITV et al : Last week it was wall to wall adverse weather/snowfall, this week it’s the Spy story, with actually no meaningful news for 5 bloody days ‘nerve agent’ ‘brazen and reckless attack’ Putin this Putin that …(BTW conveniently close to Porton down.. just sayin’) ….it’s all the fault of Russia (with a land border of 14,000 miles and no real access to the open sea..again, just sayin’) …the question is what aren’t they telling us? .. Strangely no news from Europe nothing at all from South Africa..Trump /North Korea…yeah, Nada..
Tonight BBC2 is treating us to ‘Putin -the new Czar’. Good timing. Very topical. Will it be impartial, which -we know- is a hallmark of BBC broadcasting?
I may have a look at it. If so inclined, I may compare the history of two leaders who come from a Communist background, who both came ‘from nowhere’, are sticking around forever, and causing great problems in Europe. Then we shall see who is the most dangerous.
Maybe Vlad has got a warped sense of humour. He saw
McMafia and said ” You know what the Brits think we are all
like that. Let’s show them we ARE !! I bet there are a few more
Russian” dissidents” in the UK right now shitting themselves.
As for the World Cup. I just hope Vlad’s sense of humour
doesn’t run to make sure Russian win Group A. I fear for some
of the Uruguayan, Egyptian and Saudi players. Then there is
MESSI and RONALDO!!
Alan’s meanderings usually have some kind of logic however misguided or poorly informed, but I’d challenge anyone to make any sense of this one.
Quoting Alan: ‘We heard today, on the BBC, that the Russians would actually welcome being blamed prematurely for the poisoning of ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter as they could use this to discredit later accusations’.
Well sure, that wouldn’t surprise me, that’s consistent with what the Russians do. They did similar with the shooting down of MH17.
Unfortunately Alan provides no evidence of where this was heard on the BBC. Where was it said? when? Was it the BBC saying this or someone being interviewed? That makes a big difference and I suspect the latter when Alan says ‘We heard today, on the BBC,’.
Alan then says: ‘For the last two days the BBC has been happy to oblige the Russians telling us that Boris did pretty well outright point the finger of blame at the Russians in his answer in the Commons. This, the BBC told us, was highly reckless and irresponsible of Boris to do so without evidence….’
So are we to understand that the conspiratorial BBC is pushing the idea that Russia welcomes being blamed prematurely, and at the same time then also criticises Boris for doing so? And they’ve broadcast both these things? There is surely something amiss if not schizophrenic about this conspiracy.
All the while, as Alan says, reporting accurately Boris’ comments on its website.
And where is the evidence the BBC has been inaccurately reporting Boris’ comments? You provide none.
Alan’s whole theory is based on Boris not making any suggestion Russia may have been responsible. Well, I did read Hansard, and I watched the video (which appears to be the man’s own words), and three times in the video he adds caveats about establishing the facts before pointing the finger of blame.
However, it is completely absurd to claim the BBC ‘makes a sly attempt to suggest Boris has linked Russia to the poisoning’, given that:
a) He was asked a general question about UK policy to Russia and then talks about Skripal: ‘Although he asks a general question about Russia, let me immediately say that there is much speculation about the disturbing incident in Salisbury’
b) He then immediately talks about Litvinenko: ‘Hon. Members will note the echoes of the death of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006’.
c) Having talked about Russia’s many crimes, and resulting sanctions, he goes on to talk about taking action against state actors – a state about which ‘Members will have their suspicions’ **hint: the state is Russia**
I’m pretty sure he wasn’t talking about the prime suspects being the state of Vanuatu.
But I think most people are able to assimilate the idea that there can be a prime suspect for a crime, while at the same time awaiting the proof of an investigation before imposing sanction.
By the way, is David Vance still appearing on Russia Today? And how many rubles does he get for that? And he does it over the corpses of dead Russian investigative journalists.
Blackwell
I posted earlier in the week – I think the day after the Salisbury incident -the attitude of Nick Robinson on Toady demanding a reaction to Russia even before the investigation was taken away from the local constabulary . It was breathtaking . I’m no lover of the Russians – they’ve never done us favours – but adopting such an unevidenced cavalier hostile attitude is high bias .
As for whether Alan appears of RT – perhaps at least an alt view from the evil Albeeb machine is worth a listen .
Disclosure – I am not Russian , have no connection with it and have only seen the first episode of McMAfia.
Ps Blackwell – do you express any views of your own or just dissemble those of another . ? I thought part of the function of this site was to express opinion as well as evidence the poisonous bias of al beeb
I heard that too Fedup2. He was interviewing some ex Soviet Ambassador who clearly was more temperate and measued.
But Robinson didn`t want any of that-he wanted to get some soundbite at 9am and was prepared to say ANYTHING to make some bellicose bluster with Russia a “BBC exclusive”.
Disgraceful-Robbo has never fought a war, would not be any use in one-but seems to think that he`s NATO Secretary General or Dr Strangelove…in fact that title suffices for nearly all BBC stiffs these days. And Montague did the selfsame thing next day, quoting Buzzfeed endlessly to get some response to the Russians that might stick it to Trump again. Buzzfeed are already known to be Fake News personnified. But Monty happy to cite them to roll the war onwards.
Both set ups only show that the BBC thinks itself to be a nation state that can borrow the British Army for some aggro for Hillary and Juncker.
We need to slough them off. Before they DO cause a war.
Sometimes al Beeb reflects its own values in the news running order. When the Salisbury story first broke all al Beeb was interested in was a cyclist and st mo taking drugs . The Salisbury story came a slow second.
Now it’s achieved circus status and if either Russian victim dies al Beeb will want british tanks to rumble into russia in our own little Barbarossa . It’s a good way of getting rid of RT though.
Fed, look on the bright side. At least it has slightly reduced the BBC’s attacks on Brexit.
The anti-Putin hysteria is all part of the larger Trump/Putin collusion narrative. It is run by the same people with the same objectives in mind. In other words the left leaning heads of major corporations like Google and Facebook who control social media, the deep state both in the US, UK and EU governments and the heads of the 7 companies that control the news media. The Skripal poisoning was no coincidence. Just look how easy it is to whip up the feeble-minded into a frenzy of Russiaphobia. The majority of people are simply moronic. They never even ask themselves the most basic of questions. Why would Putin have done this? What possible motive could he have had? Now what about Putin’s enemies, the same ones in the Intel services who led us into a war with Iraq that cost the lives of over 1 million innocent people. It is depressing to see how so few people learn from history even when it only happened 15 years ago.
Christopher Steele was closely connected to Skripal. That fact alone should set off alarm bells.McCabe has just been fired. When was the last time a deputy FBI director was fired….not in my lifetime and the coverage by the MSM…it barely gets 5 minutes. But the dominos are beginning to fall and when the IG’s report is out , the MSM will be exposed for what they truly are.
When all you`ve been doing is peddling a false flag narrative since Cameron won in 2015?
It`s no surprise that none of us believe a word of any of this yet.
The Russians want evidence, proof of what our saps are saying. I`m with them. Putin is a good leader of his country like Erdogan and Orban.
Might hate that-but they`re old style patriots, and their nations elect them.