Sergey Lavrov should feel embarrassed

For outrageous brazenness, Sergey Lavrov takes the top prize, an Emmy or Bafta or even Oscar. It would be funny if it wasn't funny. The Russian foreign minister whose cheeks seem to get lower and lower as he speaks, makes the accusation that it was in Theresa May's interests to poison the Russian double agent Sergei Skripal because of her troubles over Brexit. Or perhaps the Americans did it, he says. Did he write the script or was it dictated by his boss? Can Lavrov seriously hold up his head ever again as Russia's top diplomat if he's going to continue spouting such rubbish? So Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned/murdered by David Cameron?! Come on, Lavrov, this sort of brazeness is so breathtaking it will only help to convince everyone else, probably including Russian citizens, that the Kremlin was behind both the Skripal and Litvinenko poisonings. So how does your logic work, Mr Foreign Minister? The British government tried to kill the man who worked for MI6 because it would help Mrs May overcome her Brexit nightmare by showing she was tough? Is that the thinking? Well, despite his dealings with the West for so many years, Lavrov is deliberately ignoring the fact that Number 10 Downing Street is not like the Kremlin. Michael Portillo when defence secretary in 1995 boasted at the Conservative Party annual conference that he could call on the SAS to deal with problems. It was a stupid remark and not appreciated by the Hereford-based regiment. But he was being jocular. Rather like when Hugh Grant playing the prime minister in the film Love Actually offered to call the SAS to deal with his secretary's nasty boyfriend. The SAS is not an assassination squad at the prime minister's beck and call to bump people off. Nor does MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, have a "wet" unit ready at a moment's notice to execute the country's enemies. Many of the intelligence officers now do have a licence to carry arms but only to protect themselves on the most hostile assignments. But this is a totally different situation. This has nothing to do with Lavrov's extraordinary implied suggestion that Mrs May made a phone call to Hereford or to Vauxhall Cross and ordered: "I want Skripal targeted and use that Novichok stuff we have down at Porton Down." It's so ridiculous it's laughable. And yet the Russian foreign minister's claims are being given headline news around the world. Well that's what the Kremlin wanted and it has, unfortunately, succeeded.