Yes, the ease with which this attempted assassination was conducted, shows just how weak and vulnerable a diabolically divided Britain is!

Where there is plenty of jostling for the leader's mantle, but no real leader, just a few power hungry pretenders?

Most of who think that a few fiery speeches and the usual political intransigence and dividing both ends against the middle, or businesses usual!? Is all they need and are now looking like a mugged and outraged granny looking for a policeperson, who gives a continental?

Mr Putin can lie and obfuscate all he wants and is famous for? But if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and lays duck eggs. Then then in all probability, we can safely assume it's a duck. Or if you will, a successful attempted assassination attempt by those now manufacturing, stockpiling and testing this WMD!

There's a lot more the ("Crimea" a river) irresolute Poms could have and should have done! Starting with sending their nuclear armed missile firing submarines to take up station under the ice, within range of Moscow. Then applying sanctions to Putin's cronies, to put his army of rich supporters under pressure. And through them, him?

Sending massive military support to the Ukraine, men and materials etc./etc..

Let him know If he seriously wants to initiate world war three/Armageddon, Britain has the weapons and the resolve to accommodate him!

Rather like President Kennedy did over the Cuban missile crisis! Don't back down or walk away just add more men, materials an pressure!

You don't cry like a baby when the local school bully breaks your nose, but grab a shirtfront, give him a Liverpool kiss and break his! And if that sees him laying on the ground pleading for mercy? You've made your point and ended the bully boy tactics!

This sort of British Bulldog is the only one that Putin will respect! Lastly someone needs to tell that alleged man/human, he is not Russia!
Alan B.

Rubbish Alan as usual. Again the facts:

“OPCW [Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons] inspectors have had full access to all known Russian chemical weapons facilities for over a decade – including those identified by the “Novichok” alleged whistleblower Mirzayanov – and last year OPCW inspectors completed the destruction of the last of 40,000 tonnes of Russian chemical weapons."

"It is a scientific impossibility for Porton Down to have been able to test for Russian novichoks if they have never possessed a Russian sample to compare them to. They can analyse a sample as conforming to a Mirzayanov formula, but as he published those to the world twenty years ago, that is no proof of Russian origin. If Porton Down can synthesise it, so can many others, not just the Russians."

"1) Porton Down has acknowledged in publications it has never seen any Russian “novichoks”. The UK government has absolutely no “fingerprint” information such as impurities that can safely attribute this substance to Russia.
2) Until now, neither Porton Down nor the world’s experts at the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) were convinced “Novichoks” even exist.
3) The UK is refusing to provide a sample to the OPCW.
4) “Novichoks” were specifically designed to be able to be manufactured from common ingredients on any scientific bench. The Americans dismantled and studied the facility that allegedly developed them. It is completely untrue only the Russians could make them, if anybody can.
5) The “Novichok” programme was in Uzbekistan not in Russia. Its legacy was inherited by the Americans during their alliance with Karimov, not by the Russians."

Only the Russians had a reason for killing their traitor. Putin is certainly a man who believes in sending very strong messages like murder. Hardly rocket science.
Real problem is we allow these soy boys to waffle and wank over events relating to real people not the metrosexual tossers they mix with. We have a real problem and need a few more "tough" guys n gals to be on our side on so many issues.

Binoy,

Your second point:-
" the poisoning of traitors, defectors or the like – only makes sense if Skripal had turned a newly rotten leaf."

Putin's motive is to deter other defectors. Surely that makes sense.

The way Putin's only serious rival for election was charged with an offence and barred from running shows his coterie is a gang of thugs- a gang with the means and obvious motive.

Throwing in Cuba as a red herring is pathetic.

One group, the coterie led by Putin has both motive and means. Who else?

Or do you really believe that that gang of thugs did not retain just a little tiddy bit of that poison just in case it could come in handy

Putin doesn't strike me as that clumsy and stupid given there was no rush to off the fellow....or was there?...... but not by Putin.
The Russians asked for a sample of the toxin but were refused....why?...they'll be given a sample in due course...why not now?
Interesting how everyone wants it to be Putin....just like they wanted Iraq to have WMD's
This smells of a whole something else to do with the Arabs but not necessarily by the Arabs.
The thing about a lie is that it will eventually out...but the damage done in the meantime can be catastrophic.....and no one is ever held accountable.

The one thing that everyone can assume is that the Russians are lying, just as they did over the Malaysian airliner and the assassination of Litvinenko using an isotope of polonium.

Novichok is so deadly that even with highly secure laboratories people have died, so the suggestion that it could be cooked up in a backyard lab is ludicrous. Secondly, using Novichok to kill an ex-spy is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. As with polonium, it was certain to be discovered and to send a clear message to potential defectors.

While the UK has not sent samples to the Russians, it has sent them to independent labs for assessment.

It is clear that Binoy is a shameless apologist for a tyrant.