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The Times
December 05, 2006
By Mick Hume
After health officials tested Arsenal's Emirates Stadium for radiation, who will be the first to "reveal" that suspected polonium poisoning could be to blame for the mystery health and form problems apparently afflicting Thierry Henry? After all, just about everything else in London has been "linked" to Alexander Litvinenko's death.
As health officials tested aircraft, sushi bars and stadiums for traces of dodgy material, others have been busy radiating dubious speculation and conspiracy theories. Litvinenko's is the only death by polonium poisoning ever recorded. Yet this unique incident has been turned into a metaphor for whatever people are afraid of, or want to raise the alarm about, letting paranoid fantasies run riot in the absence of facts.
It started out as a reheated Cold War thriller about the alleged Russian menace. Then the weekend finally brought the turn we had been waiting for: the al-Qaeda connection. One front page reported that Litvinenko had converted to Islam, raising "fears" that he had helped terrorists to obtain a dirty bomb. The evidence? Gossip from his Muslim next-door neighbour. If it's good enough for the Sunday Express . . .
Meanwhile, experts and security officials were jollying up our weekend TV viewing with claims that the killing revealed the laxness of anti-terrorist laws or even the threat to Britain's future energy supplies. And the internet fizzes with debate about whether it was a conspiracy by the Russian State, or the UK State, or suicide. What about man-made global warming? Little wonder that some 3,000 people have now contacted NHS Direct over fears that their runny nose might be evidence of radiation poisoning.
When a former Russian prime minister fell ill in Dublin last week, many rushed to declare that he too had been poisoned with radiation. The absence of any medical evidence was seen only as proof of the cleverness of "these people".
Conspiracy theorists must think that Christmas has come early. Yet where could they have got the notion that Litvinenko's death is a political intrigue of Bondesque proportions? Perhaps from news that Cobra, the Government's top security committee, met urgently to discuss it, or the Home Secretary's promise to raise it at an EU summit. Sometimes state agencies really do spread the poison.
These look like symptoms of a contaminated body politic where plot-mongering passes for debate, nobody believes anything, and the less we know, the louder we speculate. Possible antidote: try shutting up about the "what ifs?" and investigating what happened.
Then again, the question needs to be asked: in writing this article, who am I trying to cover up for exactly?
Copyright 2006 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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