Putin seizes on Porton Down confession

All politicians know there are ways of telling the truth. Sometimes there have to be certain omissions but generally it's all about the choice of words. Unfortunately no one told Gary Aitkenhead, chief executive of Porton Down's defence science and technology establishment. Downing Street had approved his appearance on Sky News but clearly no clever official advised him or warned him that a particular question might come up which he should take care to reply to. Sure enough, as expected, Sky asked him whether Porton Down had proved that the nerve agent Novichok used in the biological warfare assassination plot in Salisbury against Sergei Skripal and his daughter could be sourced to Russia. He replied, "No". Then rather pompously added that it wasn't Porton Down's job to pinpoint where the nerve agent had come from. All he did say was that it was a military-grade material and therefore it was most likely to have eminated from a State-run laboratory. But it was too late. At a stroke the Porton Down frontman had undermined Theresa May's whole case that Russia was behind the poisoning. She sold her argument to the US and Europe and they backed her by expelling Russian diplomats from all of their capitals. In what The Times this morning called a damage-limitation exercise, Mrs May explained that Porton Down wasn't the only fish in the sea. She had also relied on the assessment of the intelligence services who were obviously less cautious about naming their top culprit. Moscow came from all their lips. Poor Gary Aitkenhead, he really should get out more and perhaps read the odd newspaper to see what's going on in the world. Then he might have given the following reply to the Sky reporter. "Well, once we had proven beyond doubt that the nerve agent used in Salisbury was of the Novichok family we drew on all our experience from trying to develop defences against the most deadly biological and chemical warfare substances in the world and, knowing that Russia had developed Novichok between 1971 and 1993, we put Russia at the top of the list of likely candidates. Of course the nerve agent traces we were examining did not come with a Russian label attached, that would be too easy, but we began to research the characteristics of the substance to try and trace the precise source. We are still engaged in this effort." By now the Sky reporter would have been either asleep or very irritated. But such a reply would have been far more acceptable to the UK government than "No". And, Mr Aitkenhead, it would still have been the truth. Anyway, the damage is done. Putin leapt at the remarks and told the world he was as innocent as a new-born lamb, and Porton Down had just proved it. The Order of Lenin for Mr Aitkenhead perhaps.