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Theresa May pulls all punches with Putin over Litvinenko killing

This article is more than 8 years old
John Crace

Despite ample encouragement from her shadow, the home secretary singularly fails to call the Russian president to task

Alexander Litvinenko solved his own murder; Theresa May merely foresaw her own embarrassment. In January 2014 the home secretary did her best to head off any inquiry into the Russian’s 2006 death. So much polonium, so little time. By July 2014 the political pressure was so intense she had little option but to bite the bullet. Since then she’s been keeping her fingers crossed that Sir Robert Owen would do the decent thing and take his time before coming to some fairly anodyne conclusions.

Disappointingly for May, Owen has proved to be a more thorough investigator than she anticipated. His report left Vladimir Putin with radioactive fingermarks glowing all over his collar and May with the giant headache of trying to sound tough with the Russian president in her statement to the Commons, when everyone knows the British government is terrified of upsetting him. Putin wouldn’t bother to poison May, he’d just tickle her to death instead.

“The government takes these findings very seriously,” she said, as Philip Hammond began nodding vigorously beside her, looking more hotel concierge than foreign secretary. Though not so seriously as to do anything much about it. “Today the Treasury has frozen the assets of the two men involved in the killing,” she continued, as if oblivious to the fact that both men had long since left the country and that all the Treasury would be seizing was a couple of empty packing crates.

May also went on to say that she would call in the Russian ambassador to give him a good talking to; a conversation the Russian ambassador is unlikely to lose any sleep over.

“Er, excuse me, ambassador, can I have a word? If it’s all right with you, your excellency, we’d be very grateful if the next time you chose to kill someone in Britain you could do so in a way that doesn’t leave such an obvious trail back to the Kremlin.”

“Is that it?”

“Yes, your most bountiful highness.”

“Good. Help yourself to a Ferrero Rocher on the way out.”

“We mustn’t rush to judgment,” said Andy Burnham in reply. No, we must hurtle headlong instead. The prime minister must talk to Putin right now live on TV and get him to confess and promise never to do it again. More punitive sanctions should be imposed. Every Russian spy should be put on the next plane back to Moscow. Every Russian asset in the country should be seized. The Chelsea football team should be put on the same plane to Moscow as the spies. Burnham scratched his head, struggling to come up with ever more severe ways of bringing Putin to his knees. It was a good day to be the shadow home secretary.

May didn’t want to appear weak or disobliging, so she reluctantly added all these ideas on to her list of things that needed to be considered, but would never happen. “The findings are so serious,” she said, “that it is vital to take a very long time to think seriously about all the things I am not going to do.” She refused to confirm that David Cameron would have strong words with Putin, though she did imply he might mumble something.

There were precious few Tory backbenchers in the Commons to witness the government’s place in the world diplomatic ratings made so explicit, though David Davis was one of the few brave enough to take on the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” beating heart of the front bench. He thought we could easily dispense with the word “probably” from the report’s assertion that Putin had probably approved the murder, and that we ought to be seizing Russian assets in the Bahamas and Switzerland instead of pussyfooting around.

“It’s not business as usual,” May whimpered, cowering at the dispatch box. “We’ve done lots and lots of really heavy stuff to Russia already.” She’d even had a word with Panini to try to get the Russian 2020 World Cup sticker album cancelled. Putin growled for the first time. No one messes with his sticker albums.

More on this story

More on this story

  • Gordon Brown says Litvinenko murder 'ordered from the top'

  • Litvinenko murder suspect dismisses inquiry as 'nonsense'

  • Litvinenko murder: it may sound brutal but the UK government has moved on

  • Key findings: who killed Alexander Litvinenko, how and why

  • Marina Litvinenko: 'You can silence one person but not the whole world'

  • Litvinenko murder 'unacceptable breach of international law'

  • Key findings: who killed Alexander Litvinenko, how and why

  • Marina Litvinenko: 'You can silence one person but not the whole world'

  • Putin's disturbing message for the west: your rules don't apply

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