Thread by @benimmo

Looks like someone tried to get hashtag SkripalHoax to trend overnight.

822 mentions. It really didn't do very well.

Let's look at some of the arguments.

Probably the most popular in the pro-Kremlin crowd was the claim that the Met Police photos of the arrival in Gatwick had the same timestamp, and therefore must have been photoshopped.

... unless there's more than one arrival channel at Gatwick, and they were walking together.

(h/t @bleidl for the photo)

Interestingly, my sincere admirer @MoonofA acknowledged it, and updated the blog post accordingly. Marks for intellectual honesty there.

Another popular argument was that the suspects were really sloppy in their tradecraft, so they can't have been agents.

Or perhaps, y'know, they were overconfident?

On that point, it's worth reading the Litvinenko report, and seeing the tradecraft there.

Spilt polonium and all.

(assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…, p.197)

There's also the old, tired argument that "If it had been Novichok, everyone would have died!"

On that, worth reading @DanKaszeta.

https://twitter.com/DanKaszeta/status/986178633374027776

And of course, there's the claim that this is a political ploy to get May out of (another) mess.

A comment which, oddly, deflects the conversation from the evidence, the Met Police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the active investigation.

Finally, the claim that May contradicted the Met Police, by linking the suspects to the GRU.

Unless, perhaps, the UK Prime Minister has sources of information which the Metropolitan Police don't?

Upsum: the pro-Kremlin, anti-UK and Kremlin-paid actors are trying hard, but they really don't have a lot to work on.

Evidence counts.