How should the UK respond to Monday's poison attack?
This article represents my own opinions and is not necessarily the policy of the Conservative party.
A major investigation is still going on into the events in Salisbury on Monday. However, it is already clear that three people - the two targets and a police officer who went to help them - were made seriously ill, and in total more than 20 people required hospital treatment, because someone used a sophisticated and rare nerve gas to attack them and thereby also endangered others in the vicinity.
It is inconceivable that this was the action of a group of individuals. Only a government, and not many governments, could have done it.
It is right that the government should seek to be as certain as possible who was actually responsible before taking action about it. But with hindsight it was a mistake that the government then in office did not take stronger action when Alexander Litvinenko was murdered in a similar manner in 2006. That mistake must not be repeated.
I am not suggesting the response Britain would have made in the 18th or 19th centuries - when the murder of Alexander Litvinenko and the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter would have been seen as an act of war and our country could and did declare war on countries, including world powers, for much less - would be appropriate today. Today nations are rightly very reluctant to go to war with any nation and indeed invading Russia has rarely ended well for those foolish enough to attempt it.
(Although Vladimir Putin might reflect that quite a few of the same historical figures like Napoleon and Hitler who found out the hard way that invading Russia is a bad mistake also found the hard way that picking a fight with Britain isn't a great idea either.)
If evidence can be found that Russia was behind Monday's attack I don't think boycotting the World Cup is remotely sufficient response.
Christian May argues here in City AM that although "It is difficult and dangerous to go toe to toe with a thuggish regime like Putin's Russia but inaction carries its own costs too and cannot be an option."
He suggests expelling every single Russian diplomat from the country.
I would go a stage further - I would break off diplomatic relations, recall all our own diplomats from Russia, and thereby deprive Putin of the opportunity to expel them in response when we sling all his spies and diplomats out of Britain.
He also suggests that a draft law currently working its way through parliament permitting targeted sanctions should be given priority, and I agree.
A major investigation is still going on into the events in Salisbury on Monday. However, it is already clear that three people - the two targets and a police officer who went to help them - were made seriously ill, and in total more than 20 people required hospital treatment, because someone used a sophisticated and rare nerve gas to attack them and thereby also endangered others in the vicinity.
It is inconceivable that this was the action of a group of individuals. Only a government, and not many governments, could have done it.
It is right that the government should seek to be as certain as possible who was actually responsible before taking action about it. But with hindsight it was a mistake that the government then in office did not take stronger action when Alexander Litvinenko was murdered in a similar manner in 2006. That mistake must not be repeated.
I am not suggesting the response Britain would have made in the 18th or 19th centuries - when the murder of Alexander Litvinenko and the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter would have been seen as an act of war and our country could and did declare war on countries, including world powers, for much less - would be appropriate today. Today nations are rightly very reluctant to go to war with any nation and indeed invading Russia has rarely ended well for those foolish enough to attempt it.
(Although Vladimir Putin might reflect that quite a few of the same historical figures like Napoleon and Hitler who found out the hard way that invading Russia is a bad mistake also found the hard way that picking a fight with Britain isn't a great idea either.)
If evidence can be found that Russia was behind Monday's attack I don't think boycotting the World Cup is remotely sufficient response.
Christian May argues here in City AM that although "It is difficult and dangerous to go toe to toe with a thuggish regime like Putin's Russia but inaction carries its own costs too and cannot be an option."
He suggests expelling every single Russian diplomat from the country.
I would go a stage further - I would break off diplomatic relations, recall all our own diplomats from Russia, and thereby deprive Putin of the opportunity to expel them in response when we sling all his spies and diplomats out of Britain.
He also suggests that a draft law currently working its way through parliament permitting targeted sanctions should be given priority, and I agree.
Comments
Regardless of any initial "implications", or "suspicions" we cant fall into the trap of "confirmation bias", we must forget our biases, look at all evidence, then try to follow the path the evidence points us to.
The reason I say its something the UK is not very good at at the moment is simply look at the damage caused to many innocent peoples lives by the accusation of rape.
On a world stage its not wise to decided it was Russia, then try to find the evidence to prove it. It has to be far more British to look at the evidence with an open mind and then see where it leads.
It wasn't back then, but then in the age of Wellington and Churchill, there were not so many people who were so "entitled", back then it was shameful for a woman to have children without provision for their up keep, not a quick path to social housing. People volunteered for service as they needed work, they did not instead go mad that they may not get benefits.
Unemployment was a horrendous curse, and a sign of bad times, it was not a life style choice as it is today.
In WW2 people gladly gave housing railings to the cause as the steel was needed, these days they go mad about the so called "bedroom tax". Its the sorry situation caused by the "something for nothing" promises of too many political parties seeking power.