Has Agent Cob Missed A Golden Opportunity To Demonstrate Leadership Qualities?

[ToraToraTora]

https://news.sky.com/story/sky-views-the-populist-misjudges-the-people-11290237
"In a moment that called for statesmanship, Mr Corbyn reverted to being parsimonious and partisan."
"His political opponents will be quietly hoping that the public have taken note." - are you a Labour voter? have you "taken note"?

[jim360]

Also, what would you *ever* give you the impression that I might be being sarcastic? :P

[Quizmonster]

“Novichok's existence was revealed by chemist Dr Vil Mirzayanov in the 1990s, via Russian media. He later defected to the US, where he published the chemical formula in his book, State Secrets.”
The above is an extract from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-43377698
It would seem to confirm what a friend of mine, a chemist, said to me recently; namely, “Any competent chemist could produce the stuff by the barrelful!”
He may have been exaggerating, I don’t know. Perhaps some of the ‘ingredients’ are not easily accessible, but I feel sure that Russia is very far from being the only country capable of producing it, despite apparent support for the Maybot.

[cassa333]

For goodness sake Corbyn, as is others on the shadow cabinet, Is on the privey council. There was all the information to hand and available to those with the requisite clearance. Either he didn't bother to look at it, ignored it or simply tried to get a political leg up by being contrary.

That makes him unfit and an *harris* of the highest order.

[maggiebee]

TTT you are really sooooo sanctimonious - why don't you just speak (or type) in English.

[Gromit]

Ian Duncan Smith showed the kind leadership qualities you are asking for of Corbyn.

He was privy to all the intelligence on Iraqi WMD (it was all lies) and he resolutely backed Blair all the way.

IDS's prize for such great statesmanship and leadership? He was booted out shortly after by his own disgruntled Tory MPs.

[Khandro]

It is ironic that Corbyn's stance on this coincides exactly with my own - the first time I've agreed with him since he surfaced.
A fairly obscure but very good and well informed German journal says today that this chemical was made in Uzbekistan and all stocks were depleted (?) however of the 2 scientists who created it one is now in America, which of course, proves nothing, but !
My main reaction to attempts to link this with President Putin (himself) was to ask why?
It is known that he has spent billions trying to ensure that the coming football world cup will show off Russia in the best possible light to the world.
Why would he want to risk all of that for taking the life one insignificant former spy?

[youngmafbog]

It may not be him directly. I suspect there is disparity in the Russian ranks, we saw in the election obvious election fraud yet there was not need. I suspect there are many in Russia living in the cold war era (as there are in the USA and probably other countries) Most likely this was a massive cockup and misinterpretation of what was wanted from or some ex-KGB agent thinking he/she would get brownie points from it.

[Gromit]

YMB,

You seem to be taking the Skirpal poisoning as an isolated incident, when in fact there have been 14 suspicious deaths of Russia emigres in the UK, including Alexandre Litvinenko.
His murderers were allowed to escape justice, which just emboldened the Russian State to assasinate more of its former citizens.
The reason Litvinenko was murdered is well documented...

// Litvinenko had been supplying Her Majesty’s spooks and their Spanish counterparts with hair-raising information about the Russian mafia in Spain. The mafia had extensive contacts with senior Russian politicians. The trail apparently led to the president’s office, and dated back to the 1990s when Putin, then aide to St Petersburg’s mayor, Anatoly Sobchak, worked closely with gangsters. In a week or so, Litvinenko was to testify before a Spanish prosecutor. Hence, it appeared, the Kremlin’s frantic efforts to kill him. //

I suspect a similar motive for Skirpal’s demise. The difference this time, the British Government rather than turn a blind eye like it normally does, decided to use the news to distract from the its domestic problems - a weak Government, chaotic Brexit negotiations and a split Conservative party at war with itself.
Over the pond, Trump’s White House is in similar disarry, and a spot of Bear baiting is always welcomed by a President in trouble. Hence the cranking up of the cold war, and all the expulsions.

[Khandro]

' .. before we act on Boris Johnson’s verdict—that Putin ordered it—let us recall:

The Spanish, we learned, did not actually blow up the battleship Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898, which ignited the Spanish-American War.

The story of North Vietnamese gunboats attacking U.S. destroyers, which led to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and 58,000 dead Americans in Vietnam, proved not to be entirely accurate.

We went to war in Iraq in 2003 to disarm it of weapons of mass destruction we later discovered Saddam Hussein did not really have.

Some 4,500 U.S. dead and tens of thousands of wounded paid for that rush to judgment. And some of those clamoring for war then are visible in the vanguard of those clamoring for confronting Russia.

Before we set off on Cold War II with Russia—leading perhaps to the shooting war we avoided in Cold War I—let’s try to get this one right.'



Patrick J. Buchanan Takimag

[Zacs-Master]

‘And some of those clamoring for war then are visible in the vanguard of those clamoring for confronting Russia’

Yes AKA ‘the military’. Helluva job security exercise!

[scooping]

Maybe when commentators keep saying nerve agents not used since WW2 they mean that the Nazis experimented on camp victims and the Japanese doing similar.