Russia has lost a vote at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on it attempt top seek a new joint investigation into Salisbury poisoning, Reuters is reporting.
An unnamed diplomatic source told the agency that the vote was lost by 15-6 with 17 OPCW member states abstaining. Russia gained support from China, Azerbaijan, Sudan, Algeria and Iran, Reuters said.
Afternoon summary
- Russia has called for a meeting of the United Nations security council to discuss the Salisbury nerve agent attack. (See 5.11pm.)
- Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has accused Jeremy Corbyn of “playing Russia’s game” over Salisbury. (See 5.02pm.) He hit back at the Labour leader after Labour accused him of “misleading the public” in what he said about Porton Down being “categorical” about the nerve agent used in the attack coming from Russia. (See 12.47pm.)
- The Foreign Office has deleted a tweet saying Porton Down confirmed the Salisbury novichok nerve agent was produced in Russia. (See 12.26pm.)
- Sergei Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, has said the Salisbury attack was a “grotesque provocation rudely staged by the British and US intelligence agencies.” (See 12.13pm.)
That’s all from me for today.
My colleague Peter Walker is now taking over the blog.
Updated
The Russian embassy has tweeted this about its call for a meeting of the UN security council.
Russia to convene UN Security Council emergency meeting on 5 April on the Salisbury poisoning pic.twitter.com/xCj4fjw4mi
— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) April 4, 2018
On its website the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has published various papers from today’s meetings.
They include the texts of statements delivered by 10 ambassadors or representatives, and an update from the director general.
Updated
Russia calls for UN security council meeting to discuss Salisbury attack
Russia has requested a United Nations security council meeting tomorrow to discuss British accusations that Moscow used a nerve agent to attack a former Russian spy in England last month, Reuters reports. The Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said the meeting would be convened on the basis of a March 13 letter sent to the UN security council by Theresa May, which said Moscow was “highly likely” responsible for the attack. The 15-member council first met on March 14, at the request of Britain, to discuss the attack in Britain’s Salisbury.
Boris Johnson accuses Corbyn of 'playing Russia's game' as Foreign Office untruth row escalates
A standard ruse for a politician facing criticism is to launch a diversionary counter-attack. That’s what Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has done in three tweets he has just posted.
Johnson did not even try to explain the discrepancy between what the head of Porton Down said yesterday and what he told German TV. (See 11.23am.) Instead he accused Jeremy Corbyn of “playing Russia’s game” and siding with the Russian spin machine.
It is lamentable that Jeremy Corbyn is now playing Russia’s game and trying to discredit the UK over Salisbury attack.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) April 4, 2018
Let’s remember the key facts:
1) Porton Down identified nerve agent as military grade Novichok; 2) Russia has investigated delivering nerve agents,likely for assassination,& as part of this programme has produced and stockpiled small quantities of Novichoks; 3) Russia has motive for targeting Sergei Skripal.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) April 4, 2018
28 other countries have been so convinced by UK case they have expelled Russians. In contrast, Jeremy Corbyn chooses to side with the Russian spin machine.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) April 4, 2018
The charge that Corbyn was “playing Russia’s game” might be true if the Labour leader was casting doubt on whether Moscow was to blame for the Salisbury attack. But he has not been doing that in what he has been saying today. Instead, Corbyn has just been asking Johnson to explain the discrepancy between what he said on German TV, about Porton Down being “categorical” about the nerve agent coming from Russia, and the Porton Down boss Gary Aitkenhead saying his laboratory could not prove that.
I quote one of Corbyn’s comments on this at 1.38pm. The Press Association also quotes Corbyn as saying this:
[Johnson] claimed categorically, and I think he used the words 101%, that it had come from Russia. Porton Down have not said that, they said that they’ve identified it as Novichok, they cannot identify the source of it.
Either the foreign secretary has information that he’s not sharing with Porton Down or it was a bit of exaggeration. I don’t know which it is, but I think we need a responsible, cool approach to this.
We need to get to the source of this to prevent it ever happening again.
Corbyn has accepted that Russia is to blame for the Salisbury attack, but he has not said the Russian government was necessarily directly responsible. It might have been to blame by letting novichok get into the wrong hands, he implied. He set out his most recent position (slightly different from his initial reaction) last week in the House of Commons.
Updated
The Russian embassy in the Netherlands says 13 countries are backing a Russian-approved statement at the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) meeting in the Hague today.
Countries that supported the Joint statement to the @OPCW with connection with the incident in Salisbury: 🇧🇾 🇸🇾 🇰🇿 🇦🇲 🇦🇿 🇮🇷 🇷🇺 🇻🇪 🇰🇬 🇵🇰 🇹🇯 🇺🇿 🇳🇮 🇨🇺 #cwc #opcw pic.twitter.com/Gw1JTsFnl3
— RussianEmbassyNL (@rusembassynl) April 4, 2018
My colleague Patrick Wintour says they are the usual Russian allies.
The 14 strong coalition at the OPCW that backed Russia has a familiar look - Cuba, Pakistan, Iran, Nicaragua, Russia, Venezuela, Syria, Belarus, Armenia, the Stans. https://t.co/hNhj9lv9Hc
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) April 4, 2018
Putin says he hopes common sense will prevail in Salisbury row
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said today that he hoped “common sense” would prevail in the dispute with the UK over the Salisbury attack. Speaking at a press conference in Ankara, in Turkey, he said:
We wait for the moment when, finally, common sense comes out victorious, and international relations stop receiving the damage that we are witnessing right now.
Yesterday’s Porton Down statement represents a vindication of sorts for Craig Murray, the former ambassador to Uzbekistan (his book about his time there, Murder in Samarkand, is very good) who left the Foreign Office after becoming increasingly outspoken on the subject of human rights and who now blogs and campaigns, largely from an ultra alternative and anti-establishment viewpoint.
His suggestion that Israel is just as likely to have been to blame for the Salisbury attack as Russia would probably be seen by many people as borderline delusional.
But his Porton Down blog from three weeks ago has stood the test of time. He wrote:
I have now received confirmation from a well placed FCO source that Porton Down scientists are not able to identify the nerve agent as being of Russian manufacture, and have been resentful of the pressure being placed on them to do so. Porton Down would only sign up to the formulation “of a type developed by Russia” after a rather difficult meeting where this was agreed as a compromise formulation. The Russians were allegedly researching, in the “Novichok” programme a generation of nerve agents which could be produced from commercially available precursors such as insecticides and fertilisers. This substance is a “novichok” in that sense. It is of that type. Just as I am typing on a laptop of a type developed by the United States, though this one was made in China.
To anybody with a Whitehall background this has been obvious for several days. The government has never said the nerve agent was made in Russia, or that it can only be made in Russia. The exact formulation “of a type developed by Russia” was used by Theresa May in parliament, used by the UK at the UN Security Council, used by Boris Johnson on the BBC yesterday and, most tellingly of all, “of a type developed by Russia” is the precise phrase used in the joint communique issued by the UK, USA, France and Germany yesterday ...
When the same extremely careful phrasing is never deviated from, you know it is the result of a very delicate Whitehall compromise.
Murray has written another blog today saying the Foreign Office has been lying (which, of course, they deny - see 12.19pm.)
EU leaders also seem to be standing by their assessment that Russia was to blame for the Salisbury attack, despite yesterday’s comment from Porton Down. An ambassador speaking on behalf of the EU made that point to the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons earlier. (See 1.24pm.)
In Brussels, when asked about this issue, the European commission’s spokesman, Alexander Winterstein, said:
Our understanding is that the role of the experts there was to identify the type of agent that was used, not the source of the agent. That’s also what the experts have done. They did identify the nerve agent Novichok. That is what they have done.
In Berlin the spokeswoman for the German government, Ulrike Demmer, said “nothing has changed” in the light of the Porton Down comments. She went on:
We share Britain’s view that there is a high likelihood that Russia is behind it.
And the French embassy in the UK has tweeted this.
On #Skripal case, Paris
— French Embassy UK (@FranceintheUK) April 4, 2018
- says @OPCW is in charge of lending assistance to verify UK investigation’s findings;
- urges Russia to answer UK's questions;
- and reiterates solidarity with UK https://t.co/LamcJXOGWc pic.twitter.com/YEURehTaGX
Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, told the Press Association today that yesterday’s comments from the Porton Down boss had not led him to change his mind about Russia being to blame for the Salisbury attack. He said:
It hasn’t changed my view. I was a cabinet minister for five years, I worked very closely with the intelligence agencies.
I trust them. I think they’re highly professional and objective, and what they tell us and what the prime minister has said is that the overwhelming circumstantial evidence is that the Russians were involved, and I believe that.
I’ve many other differences with the government, but I do support their position on this issue.
Updated
Childcare costs have risen by up to 47% under Tories, says Labour
Childcare costs have spiked by as much as 47% across England since the Tories came to power, according to analysis by Labour. As the Press Association reports, the party’s figures suggest the costs of nurseries and childminders have grown at double or even triple the rate of wages. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that nurseries were also feeling the pain as they could not afford to provide the 30 hours of free childcare, as set out by the government last year. Speaking on a visit to a nursery in Watford, he said:
Some nurseries are closing because they can’t afford to do the 30 hours for the later years that the government wants them to do. We’re saying there has to be more money put in to the childcare system in order that they can be fully funded and remain open.
We’re actually losing nursery places at a time when we actually desperately need more of them.
Every parent will tell you if they’ve got very small children, the difficulties they have in finding a nursery or if they can’t find a nursery getting a child minder to look after the child.
As a community we need to take responsibility for all of our children, that’s why we’re determined to bring in the 30 hours per week.
Updated
Russia backs request by Skripal relative to visit Sergei and Yulia in hospital
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has said that a relative of the victims of the Salisbury attack, Viktoria Skripal, is planning to visit them in hospital. It has posted these tweets.
#Zakharova: @RussianEmbassy contacted with Viktoria Skripal, relative of the Russian victims of the Salisbury incident, Sergei and Yulia Skripal. Our diplomats share with her the latest information available to the Russian side about the medical condition of her relatives
— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) April 4, 2018
#Zakharova: Viktoria Skripal plans to visit her relatives in the UK to provide moral and psychological support. We consider this an absolutely natural and sincere desire, and especially important now, as Yulia Skripal’s condition has reportedly improved
— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) April 4, 2018
The Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg says he is “flattered” to be compared to the Beano character Walter Brown. (See 12.04pm.)
I am flattered to be accused by the Beano's legal eagles of imitating Walter the Softy whose powerful physical prowess is so much greater than my own https://t.co/p6uQ1Yy5dK
— Jacob Rees-Mogg (@Jacob_Rees_Mogg) April 4, 2018
Security minister Ben Wallace says Russia only country in world to design and stockpile novichok
Ben Wallace, the security minister, was on the World at One defending Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, over what he said about Porton Down and the nerve agent used in the Salisbury attack. Here are the key points he made.
- Wallace rejected claims that the government was saying contradictory things about Salisbury. When it was put to him that the situation was a “mess”, he replied: “I don’t think so at all.”
- He said the government assessment that Russia was to blame for the Salisbury attack was not just based on the evidence uncovered at Porton Down. He said:
Scientists are scientists. As well as national security, I have organised crime and terrorism under my portfolio. When we work with forensic scientists, the scientist tell us what something is. They tell me a gun and a type of gun was used. But the attribution of who used it and exactly how it was used is a matter for the broader investigation. That includes intelligence, detectives - this is a police investigation- and the scientists as well. That is perfectly understandable.
Remember, the foreign secretary and myself and others had seen a clutch of intelligence as well behind this.
We have to remember that Russia has very clear form on this. First of all, President Putin has said himself that traitors should kick the bucket. The Duma has passed legislation to say it’s okay to assassinate people ... We know from Litvinenko that they have done the same thing in the United Kingdom. By the way, after that event they lied and obfuscated, and [at] the very end of that process stopped us interviewing the suspects. So we know they’ve got form in that space, as police would say.
We also know that the Russians designed novichok, first of all to get round the existing conventions, and stockpiled it. And don’t take my word for it; take [the word of] the former scientist who was actually involved in the programme who has been publicly out on the media saying he was involved in that programme. So we know they have stockpiled it and created it.
And we also know that Russia use obfuscation, fake news, all sorts of things to try to move the blame around and try and confuse.
- He implied that the Porton Down assessment was firmer than yesterday’s interview implied. Wallace was asked why Johnson told German TV that Porton Down told him Russia was to blame, when the Porton Down boss Gary Aitkenhead told Sky News yesterday that he could not prove that the novichok came from Russia. Wallace replied:
I’m not going to second guess the head scientist at Porton Down other than to say it is very clear that novichok was designed by the Russians to get round the [chemical weapons] convention treaty and the Russians have stockpiled it and the Russians have used chemicals and other things.
When it was put to him that he had not explained the discrepancy, Wallace replied:
Porton Down will be able to tell you that there are very, very, very few people in the world who can develop - first of all, who did design novichok, that was the Russians, who have developed and stockpiled it. In fact, the cast of that is reduced to one.
Wallace also said that Aitkenhead spoke about not being able to identify the “precise” location where the novichok was manufactured - implying that Porton Down was more confident about its general provenance.
Here is Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, on Boris Johnson.
What a complete mess this is, Boris Johnson and the Foreign Office have some very serious questions to answer, dismissive waving of hands and the usual bluff bluster will not do, this is an extremely serious situation... https://t.co/8hUCMCgE5S
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) April 4, 2018
Corbyn says Boris Johnson has 'egg on his face' because his Porton Down claims weren't backed up by evidence
Jeremy Corbyn has now recorded a clip for broadcasters about Boris Johnson’s Porton Down claims. He said Johnson had “egg on his face” because his claims were not backed up by evidence. He told Sky News:
Boris Johnson has serious questions to answer. He claimed on German television that this was a Russian-produced nerve agent and Porton Down then examined it and said all they could identify it was as novichok. They couldn’t say where it came from, and the chemical weapons organisation is meeting to continue that discussion about where it goes from here. The Foreign Office then issued a tweet in support of what the foreign secretary said, and then removed that yesterday after Porton Down had said they couldn’t identify the source of it.
So Boris Johnson seems to have completely exceeded the information that he had been given and told the world in categorical terms what he believed had happened. And it’s not backed up by the evidence he claimed to have got from Porton Down in the first place. Boris Johnson needs to answer some questions ...
Where does that leave the foreign secretary? Egg on his face for the statement he made on German television.
EU continues to back UK in saying no plausible alternative to Russia being to blame for Salisbury attack
Yesterday’s comments from the Porton Down boss Gary Aitkenhead about how the laboratory could not prove that the novichok used in the Salisbury attack came from Russia does not seem to have weakened EU support for the UK.
At the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) meeting today Krassimir Kostov, the Bulgaria ambassador to the OPCW, delivered a statement on behalf of the whole of the EU. He said the EU stood by the position it agreed at last month’s EU summit, where EU leaders agreed that it was highly likely that Russia was to blame and that there was no plausible alternative explanation. In his statement Kostov said:
Today we confirm once again this position and reiterate our solidarity with the people and government of the United Kingdom and those fighting for their lives after the attack ....
We have full confidence in the UK investigation and laud [the] UK’s collaboration with the OPCW technical secretariat, in full compliance with the convention.
In his statement, Kostov also said that the “flood of insinuations” directed at EU countries since the Salisbury attack were “completely unacceptable”. (He was referring, for example, to claims from Moscow that the UK might have been responsible for the Salisbury attack.)
Kostov also said that Russia seemed to be “setting the stage for rejecting the results of the OPCW work on the Salisbury incident”.
In an interview with RT (formerly Russia Today, the pro-Kremlin news channel), the former Labour and then Respect MP George Galloway said Boris Johnson should resign because he “lied” about the Porton Down assessment of the novichok used in the Salisbury attack.
"For a Foreign Secretary to lie about such a grave matter it must be a resignation matter" says @georgegalloway as @BorisJohnson's under pressure for possibly lying about Russia being the source of a nerve agent used in the Skripals’ poisoning.
— RT UK (@RTUKnews) April 4, 2018
MORE: https://t.co/7Sjh5yXfnc pic.twitter.com/F9XIsMTowh
Of course, the Foreign Office has rejected claims that what Johnson was was inaccurate or misleading. See 12.19pm for the full statement it put out.
Boris Johnson 'misled the public' over Porton Down novichok evidence, says Labour
Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, has now explicitly accused Boris Johnson of misleading the public about the Porton Down novichok evidence. She implied as much in her Today interview (see 11.23am), but she has now firmed up her language in a press release. She said:
It seems Boris Johnson misled the public when he claimed that Porton Down officials confirmed to him that Russia was the source of the nerve agent used in the Salisbury attack.
Those officials have made it clear they cannot identify its source, and are not able to definitively say it came from Russia or elsewhere.
Boris Johnson is supposed to represent Britain on the world stage, but time and again he has shown he is unable to do so responsibly.
UK says Russia is 'nervous' about what OPCW investigation into Salisbury attack will show
And my colleague Patrick Wintour has translated it into Twitterese.
UK to OPCW "Russia’s refusal to accept the results of the OPCW’s investigation unless Russian experts participate in it suggests that Russia is opposed to the independence and impartiality of the Technical Secretariat and is nervous about what the results will show".
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) April 4, 2018
UK to OPCW "Russia’s statements demonstrate a wilful ignorance of the Convention’s provisions and, worse than that, a disdain for the independence and competence of the Technical Secretariat".
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) April 4, 2018
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has been speaking about the Salisbury attack today. The Russian ambassador to London, Alexander Yakovenko, has tweeted a quote from him.
Putin on Salisbury poisoning: Scotland Yard says they need at least 2 months. @dstlmod director says they were unable to trace what country the poison came from. Yet the anti-Russian campaign was in full swing immediately. We convene an @OPCW meeting to find the truth. pic.twitter.com/IA5IbvyKkA
— Alexander Yakovenko (@Amb_Yakovenko) April 4, 2018
Sky also broadcast a comment from Putin, who is currently on a visit to Turkey. Putin said:
The president of the chemical laboratory within 20 kilometres of the location where the incident took place told Sky News that they were not able to detect the origin country for this chemical agent. They could not tell whether this was manufactured in Russia. They were not able to make that clear.
Foreign Office deletes tweet saying Porton Down confirmed Salisbury novichok produced in Russia
This morning the Russian embassy in London highlighted a Foreign Office tweet from last month saying Porton Down found that the novichok used in the Salisbury attack was definitely “produced in Russia”.
22 March: “Porton Down lab @dstlmod clearly established that the source of Salisbury toxic agent was Russia”
— Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) April 4, 2018
3 April: “ @dstlmod never had the task to establish the source of the toxic agent” pic.twitter.com/rVyJsbNJiG
The tweet has now been deleted. This is from ITV’s Paul Brand.
FCO statement: "An HMA Moscow briefing on 22 March was tweeted in real time to explain what happened in Salisbury to as wide an audience as possible. One of the tweets was truncated and did not accurately report our Ambassador’s words. We have removed this tweet."
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) April 4, 2018
Foreign Office rejects claims Johnson's Porton Down claims were misleading
As HuffPost’s Paul Waugh reports, the Foreign Office has put out a statement dismissing claims that what Boris Johnson said about Porton Down confirming Russia’s responsibility for the Salisbury attack (see 11.23am) was misleading. A Foreign Office spokesman said:
The foreign secretary was making clear that Porton Down were sure it was a novichok – a point they have reinforced.
He goes on in the same interview to make clear why based on that information, additional intelligence and the lack of alternative explanation from the Russians, we have reached the conclusion we have.
What the foreign secretary said then, and what Porton Down have said recently, is fully consistent with what we have said throughout. It is Russia that is putting forward multiple versions of events and obfuscating the truth.
Russian spy chief says Salisbury attack was "grotesque provocation" staged by UK and US
According to the Associated Press, Sergei Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s foreign intelligence service told a security conference in Moscow today that the Salisbury attack on Sergei Skripal was a “grotesque provocation rudely staged by the British and US intelligence agencies.”
The Beano has written an open letter to the Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg accusing him copywright violation on the grounds that he is masquerading as the Beano character Walter Brown.
It’s come to our readers attention that @Jacob_Rees_Mogg has been masquerading as Beano character Walter Brown. A clear breach of our copyright. pic.twitter.com/voWQZ5VkPS
— Beano (@BeanoOfficial) April 4, 2018
SDLP says claims it will disband to allow Fianna Fail to fight elections in its place are 'speculation'
The SDLP, which used to be the main party for the nationalist community in Northern Ireland, has described as “speculation” a report in today’s Belfast Telegraph saying it may disband to allow the Irish party Fianna Fail to fight elections in Northern Ireland in its place. The Belfast Telegraph story quotes senior SDLP sources as saying around 80% of members are in favour of the move. In a statement on the story, an SDLP spokesman said:
Comments from unnamed sources amount to no more than speculation.
The SDLP has and will continue to work with all parties across the island in pursuit of the best solutions to protect the interests of all people here.
As we have always said realignment across the island cannot be ruled out in the future. But our focus remains on working to stop a return to British direct rule by restoring devolution to protect the interests of people here through a locally accountable government.
Vauxhall announces new van to be built at Luton
Vauxhall is to build a new van at one of its UK plants, giving a huge boost to the automotive industry, the Press Association reports. The move will safeguard the 1,400 jobs at the firm’s Luton factory and is also expected to create more roles. The new Vivaro van will replace the current model from 2019. The plant’s capacity will increase to 100,000 a year. Around 59,000 vans year are currently built at Luton.
According to the PA report, the government and Luton council have given money for the new van to be built in the UK. Company officials said the new van could have been built in Germany or Poland, but Luton is the only plant with a paintshop, which is one of the reasons for the decision.
Asked about uncertainty over Brexit, Carlos Tavares, chairman of Vauxhall owner Peugeot Citroen, he said the government had given assurances about seeking tariff free and frictionless trade with the EU. He also stressed that the company needed extra capacity now. “If you wait for everyone to decide if it is the right time to invest, the only thing you are sure about is it will be too late,” he said.
UK says Moscow's call for joint British/Russian investigation into Salisbury attack 'perverse'
The UK delegation to the OPCW (Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) has its own Twitter feed. They’ve only got 764 followers, but today they at the forefront of a diplomatic wrangle between Russia and the west and they have been tweeting about the Russian demand for a joint UK/Russian investigation into the Salisbury attack.
Russia’s proposal for a joint, UK/Russian investigation into the Salisbury incident is perverse. It is a diversionary tactic, and yet more disinformation designed to evade the questions the Russian authorities must answer.
— UK Delegation OPCW (@UK_OPCW) April 4, 2018
Labour criticises Boris Johnson over his Porton Down/novichok claims as OPCW meets
Good morning. And apologies again for the late start. I has held up again this morning on childcare duties.
But, never mind. The Guardian has two live blogs on the go already. My colleague Alexandra Topping is looking at gender pay gap figures on the final day for big companies to publish their figures.
And Graeme Wearden is reporting on the US/China trade war on his business live blog.
Westminster politics is relatively quiet again this morning. The main item on the agenda is the Lib Dem local election launch (I rest my case).
But we may get developments in the Salisbury nerve agent poisoning story, because British experts are attending a meeting of the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons in the Hague where the Russians want to challenge the claims they they produced the novichok nerve agent used to attempt to kill Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. Here is my colleague Patrick Wintour’s preview story.
The British position has been undermined by the interview given yesterday by Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of the government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), who said the Porton Down research laboratory had not categorically established that the novichok used in the attack was made in Russia. This contradicts what Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, told German TV two weeks ago when he said:
When I look at the evidence, the people from Porton Down, the laboratory, they were absolutely categorical. I asked the guy myself, I said: ‘Are you sure?’ And he said: ‘There’s no doubt.’ So we have very little alternative but to take the action that we have taken.
Aitkenhead and Downing Street have both said that other factors as well, including intelligence, led the government to conclude that Russia was to blame for the attack.
On the Today programme this morning Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, said she was not surprised by Aitkenhead’s comments. She said:
It doesn’t surprise me Porton Down is saying this because the security services were always very cautious in what they said. What surprised me was that so many were willing to rush into the media and say it was unequivocally Putin. That’s not necessarily what we were told.
Abbott acknowledged that Theresa May was quite cautious in what she said in her initial statement. (May told MPs that in her first Commons statement on this that the Skripals were poisoned “with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia”.) But Abbott did criticise Johnson for what he said:
[May] was quite careful in her initial statement. But Boris Johnson apparently going on international media and saying he was 101% certain it was Putin - I don’t understand where he got that information from.
Abbott also said she hoped Labour would “get some credit for taking a more thoughtful approach and asking the right questions”.
To reinforce her point, Abbott retweeted this yesterday.
Listen, in his own words, to Boris Johnson claim he had categorical assurances from Porton Down that the nerve agent originated from Russia. This has today been exposed as incorrect. pic.twitter.com/yQyLoAau9O
— Tory Fibs (@ToryFibs) April 3, 2018
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ top 10 must reads.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.
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Updated
