After this, the UK can kiss goodbye to whatever remains of its reputation for honesty, decency and sportsmanlike behaviour.

Can you imagine the results of any interview with the now-awake Yulia Skripal? And what, it seems likely, would be revealed to the public?

The dreary reality:

“Ms Skripal, can you recall what you did that day?”

“No.”

The diabolical publicity:

“Ms Skripal, can you recall what you did that day?”

“My father and I breakfasted on some porridge that a friend had brought over from Russia. He told me it tasted remarkably like Novichok, a poison that our government had developed before he left the country. He said not to worry – they ended up using it to wallpaper our flats so we’d get used to it. ‘It’ll take a ton of it to touch us,’ he said.

“On the way out, my father noticed something strange about the front door. ‘This goop looks – and feels – just like that Novichok stuff,’ he said. ‘Have a feel!’

“After that, it’s a blur.”

I know what you’re going to say: “It’s Novichok, not Novi-chocolate!”

Well, maybe. But the story above is about as likely as anything Theresa May and Boris Johnson have said lately.

What did Mr Johnson say?

Oh, all right. I couldn’t resist getting in a dig about his Brexit lies as well. He said:

And his Foreign Office has now deleted its tweet accusing Russia:

The FO tweet reads: “Analysis by world-leading experts at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down made clear that this was a military-grade Novichok nerve agent produced in Russia. Porton Down is OPCW-accredited and designated laboratory”

And what did Gary Aitkenhead, the chief executive of the government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down say?

He said: “We were able to identify it as novichok, to identify it was a military-grade nerve agent. We have not verified the precise source, but we have provided the scientific information to the government, who have then used a number of other sources to piece together the conclusions that they have come to.”

What sources?

The kind identified by Craig Murray in his now-vindicated article of March 13? The kind that is

knocked up for huge wodges of cash from whatever they could cobble together

in support of

the willingness of the UK and US security services to accept and validate intelligence they knew to be false in order to pursue their policy objectives.

That kind?

The only politician to come out of this with his reputation intact would appear to be Jeremy Corbyn, who was practically accused of treachery by Theresa May after he appealed for a rational approach to the Salisbury poisoning, based on the evidence rather than wild accusations.

He was right; she was wrong. And she was lying.

And it will be a long time before we get to learn the facts.

But it seems to This Writer that one question can be answered right now:

[polldaddy poll=9975637]

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