THERESA MAY kicked off a dramatic week on March 12th with her Commons statement on the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia by a powerful nerve agent in Salisbury,a peaceful cathedral city. The prime minister pointed her finger directly at Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and saying that either the Russian state had sanctioned the attack or it had lost control of a deadly poison. She gave the Russians until the end of the following day to produce an explanation before she concluded that Britain had been the victim of “an illegal use of force”.
This marked the return of the feisty politician who all but disappeared after June’s election catastrophe. Jeremy Corbyn,Labour’s leader, was feeble in his response. He called for dialogue with Russia and then veered into an attack on the Tories for taking money from Russian billionaires. Labour backbenchers were embarrassed at his misjudgment of this national moment. The exchanges also set in motion a process that put Salisbury at the centre...
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Source: economist.com