'In normal times Boris Johnson would be sacked': your best comments today

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/05/in-normal-times-boris-johnson-would-be-sacked-your-best-comments-today

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Boris Johnson’s handling of the Salisbury poisoning has provoked some of the most interesting conversation on site today. We’re also looking at reaction to a feature on Martin Luther King’s legacy, and an emotional read about coming to terms with a fatal road accident.

To join in the conversation you can click on the links in the comments below to expand and add your thoughts. We’ll continue to highlight more comments worth reading as the day goes on.

Russia dismisses UK claim that it was to blame for Salisbury attack as ‘fairytale’

There was renewed focus on Boris Johnson in your reaction to today’s political events as reported in our live blog.

‘In normal times, what we have seen would be more than enough to sack him’

This has arguably been Boris Johnson’s first real, serious test as the UK’s leading diplomat, and he has failed it spectacularly. In normal times, what we have seen over the last few weeks would be more than enough to sack him. Most Foreign Secretaries wouldn’t even have let it get that far and resigned their office themselves to save face. What we are seeing is two things, (1) Boris Johnson says things without first clearing it or engaging his brain for even a micro-second and (2) he can get away with whatever he wants. There is almost nothing the PM can sack him for at this stage.YorkerBouncer

‘If they had only waited ... they’d have come out looking good’

I still don’t understand the UK Government’s rush to declare, in parliament, Russia’s culpability for the Skripal attack without having a cast iron case? If they had only waited until they had all their ducks in a row with Porton Down, the OPCW and intelligence services, it would have been a slamdunk. They’d have come out of this looking incredibly good.

Instead, they made accusations which they have not yet been able to adequately back up with facts and evidence, which just makes them look incredibly foolish and incompetent. Truly embarrassing for the UK.nemossister

Martin Luther King: how a rebel leader was lost to history

Gary Younge looked back on the legacy of Martin Luther King, 50 years from his death, and readers have been sharing their own thoughts.

‘King’s Mountaintop speech was chillingly prescient’

Martin Luther King never lost hope in the capacity to renew and redeem the American dream through peaceful resistance. Even against a tide of disappointments, trade-offs, compromises and slow progress that would inevitably signpost the way along the arc of the moral universe, he believed that the Dream had the capacity to allow its society to evolve and find a better place. Even if his methods must have seemed revolutionary in the dark heart of the Jim Crow South.

The fact that he was killed for that suggests that we failed him in the end. Not him, us! His Mountaintop speech is chillingly prescient, regardless of how many times I hear it.El Zorro

‘I had become a killer’: how I learned to live again, after running a man over

Readers have been sharing their reactions to an emotional piece by Jonathan Izard. It was difficult reading for some.

‘I wish you peace’

What an unexpectedly moving and powerful piece. Your grasp of emotion and your strength of insight have brought me to tears.

I am so sorry that you have had to endure this and I am so very sorry for the poor man who died and those he left behind.

I wish you peace, and I hope that I am correct in observing that you are on your way to finding it.ranelagh75

‘I still re-live numerous ‘snapshots’ from that and other days’

When I was 25 my father was killed in a road traffic collision in the next village. He was driving to work when a speeding rigid lorry, coming from the opposite direction, lost control on a bend and virtually decapitated him.

Forty odd years later I still re-live numerous ‘snapshots’ from that and other days; misunderstanding what the policeman said to me, having to tell my mother and sister, the doctor, the inadequate account at the inquest, my mother’s subsequent death. Unbelievable harrowing, even now.

[This comment] and the article give me a slight insight into the ‘other side’ of a tragic death. I will try to think of that driver in a more sympathetic light now.ID4267113

Comments have been edited for length. This article will be updated throughout the day with some of the most interesting ways readers have been participating across the site.