WTF??

Conspiracy theorists wet dream.

Can alleged nerve agents ‘survive’ that long in the environment (assuming that the two incidents are related)?

All very very odd

JHJ will be along shortly to explain it all.

No doubt* concocted to counter all the good publicity Russia is getting.

Just so we have an excuse to pull out of the world cup without getting whacked in the next round?

Can alleged nerve agents ‘survive’ that long in the environment

I am guessing they found whatever the attempted assassins used to hold the poison and, unfortunately for them, opened it.

I suppose Russia will claim it was these two that poisoned Skripal.

Fascinating stuff on newsnight right now

Can alleged nerve agents ‘survive’ that long in the environment (assuming that the two incidents are related)?

Yes, easily, especially if protected from water, air or sunlight which would be the main things that might degrade them,

Some are designed to be ‘persistent’ so that the risk of poisoning continues and anyone working in the area has to take precautions, which degrades performance and causes casualties. You might use those on an enemy’s airfield so they’d have to try and run air operations while all suited up. Others are non-persistent and degrade quite quickly. These would be used, for example, if you expected your own troops to occupy the area soon and didn’t want to expose them to risk.

The Litvinenko poisining left radioactivity in many sites around London and a few further afield, and where the poisoners prepared the polonium was hot as Hell. No reason to expect the users of the Novichok would be any less messy.

According to nresninew the novichok used was designed to linger.

Does look like a tragic accident, with the couple possibly encountering the discarded delivery device from the skirpal attack.

I don’t suppose that May will be taking up that offer to go to the 1/4 finals.

May even put pressure on Trump not to meet with Putin, not that it’ll matter

Putin must be seriously worried that England will prevent Russia from winning the World Cup, he wants May to pull the team in protest to new poisonings. 😉

Were they perhaps paid to poison the son and daughter earlier this year and now they have been knobbled off before they blab?

Certainly a case for Moulder and Scilly, dread to think how this new case will affect Salisbury tourism and general use by the public.

I find it strange that none of the news channels have said what this new couple do.  Normally they categorize people as to their occupation (Jemma, 22, aspiring model from Swindon etc) but all we have is their names, ages and where they’re from.

Are they working for the intelligance services?  If so, surely they’d have a cover story???

They appear to be full time drunks, tbh, that it was assumed they’d both had heroin initially implies that they might move in those circles.

Also their mate interviewed yesterday was a bit of a character