The targeting of Sergei Skripal might have been McMafia, not the Kremlin

We think of spy swaps as being thoroughly and always unscrupulous, but there actually are rules of the road. There is a protocol between the two intelligence agencies, a sort of honour among thieves. That’s why it’s very odd to see somebody like Skripal, being targeted like this. And until we have some forensic evidence – and proper circumstantial evidence – it’s premature to accuse the Russian government of having been involved. It does seem that Skripal was involved in something: likely to be something to do with his stock-in-trade – which is the exchange, the buying and selling of information. And when you do that, you sometimes work with unscrupulous economic actors, who may be on the dark side.

The fundamental problem from the British perspective is that we opened up London to all comers. Very few questions were asked about where their money was coming from. And that remains the same today, because people can still come from outside the country and use  anonymous companies to buy up property and businesses.