Oliver Bullough: Time to play hard with wealthy Russians living in Britain

A police officer stands guard outside a cordoned-off branch of the Italian chain restaurant Zizzi close to The Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury, southern England, on March 8, which was closed in connection to the ongoing major incident sparked after a man and a woman were found critically ill on a bench at the shopping centre on March 4. British police raced Tuesday to identify an unknown substance that left a former Russian double agent fighting for his life, in what a senior lawmaker said bore the hallmarks of a Russian attack. Moscow said it had no information about the "tragic" collapse of the man, identified by the media as Sergei Skripal, in the quiet southern English city of Salisbury on Sunday, but said it would be happy to cooperate if requested by British authorities. Specialist officers from the counter-terrorism squad are helping investigate the incident, which also left a 33-year-old woman - reported to be Skripal's daughter Yulia - in a critical condition in what is feared to be a poison plot.