Browse content similar to Inside Porton Down: Britain's Secret Weapons Research Facility. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
This programme contains scenes which viewers may find upsetting. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:06 | |
This is CS gas. | 0:00:06 | 0:00:07 | |
It's designed to hurt, not kill. | 0:00:09 | 0:00:11 | |
It's one of the few chemical weapons I can be exposed to and survive. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:17 | |
When you are happy, take your mask off and remove your respirator. | 0:00:21 | 0:00:24 | |
-Open your eyes. -OK. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:29 | |
OK, what's your name? | 0:00:29 | 0:00:30 | |
Michael... Oh, God! Ah! | 0:00:30 | 0:00:33 | |
COUGHING AND SPLUTTERING | 0:00:33 | 0:00:36 | |
Jesus! | 0:00:40 | 0:00:42 | |
COUGHING | 0:00:42 | 0:00:45 | |
GASPING | 0:00:47 | 0:00:49 | |
Don't rub your eyes, Michael, you will make it worse. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:54 | |
How, really...? | 0:00:54 | 0:00:55 | |
Oh, Jesus! | 0:00:55 | 0:00:56 | |
I generally thought it was going to be quite mild, but it's... | 0:01:00 | 0:01:05 | |
I can see why they use it in those situations. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:08 | |
You cannot... | 0:01:08 | 0:01:09 | |
..stay there. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:12 | |
CS gas is one of the many chemical weapons developed | 0:01:15 | 0:01:18 | |
at Britain's top-secret military research base, | 0:01:18 | 0:01:21 | |
which this year celebrates its 100th anniversary. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:24 | |
We've been given unprecedented access to Porton Down | 0:01:26 | 0:01:29 | |
and to research being done in secure laboratories. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:32 | |
Biological and chemical weapons. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:37 | |
There's enough there to kill hundreds of thousands of people. | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
Their impact is unbounded. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
This is research that is aimed at protecting British military, | 0:01:44 | 0:01:48 | |
but also civilians, from terrorist attack. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:50 | |
But Porton Down also have their dark secrets. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
The only thought that the government had was let's hush it up. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:01 | |
It's about keeping this nation safe | 0:02:01 | 0:02:04 | |
and some of that we need to keep secret | 0:02:04 | 0:02:06 | |
to make sure we stay ahead of the people who would do us harm. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:10 | |
This is the most secret, controversial | 0:02:10 | 0:02:12 | |
and misunderstood scientific and military institution in the UK. | 0:02:12 | 0:02:17 | |
CAR RADIO: "Porton Down has long been the home to the most sensitive | 0:02:34 | 0:02:37 | |
"work in defence, but now it's being prepared to..." | 0:02:37 | 0:02:41 | |
I'm Dr Michael Mosley and I've seen close-up | 0:02:41 | 0:02:43 | |
what happens to soldiers and civilians on the front line, | 0:02:43 | 0:02:48 | |
which is why I'm particularly fascinated by Porton Down, | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
also known as the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, | 0:02:51 | 0:02:55 | |
where so much secret British military research takes place. | 0:02:55 | 0:03:00 | |
I'm actually getting a little tingle of excitement | 0:03:00 | 0:03:02 | |
at the thought of going in. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
Porton Down has been described as the most secret place in Britain. | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
It is, therefore, a huge privilege and thrill, I have to say, | 0:03:09 | 0:03:13 | |
being allowed into it. | 0:03:13 | 0:03:15 | |
I'll be very curious to see what they actually show us | 0:03:15 | 0:03:18 | |
and, to some extent, what they don't show us. | 0:03:18 | 0:03:20 | |
-Pass. Thanks. -Thank you very much. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
-Hi there. -Hi, Michael. -Hello. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:27 | |
-Nice to see you. -Nice to meet you. -Thank you. -Let me show you around. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:31 | |
Many people may have heard of Porton Down, | 0:03:31 | 0:03:34 | |
but many more will have no idea what really goes on in here. | 0:03:34 | 0:03:37 | |
I'm certainly hoping to find out. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:41 | |
Hello. | 0:03:41 | 0:03:42 | |
Right. Magical mystery tour. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:48 | |
Let's go. | 0:03:48 | 0:03:49 | |
Do you do many guided tours for journalists? | 0:03:52 | 0:03:55 | |
Not for journalists. | 0:03:55 | 0:03:56 | |
It does have quite a reputation as a site. | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
In what way? | 0:03:59 | 0:04:01 | |
Historically, there's so many aliens | 0:04:01 | 0:04:03 | |
and so many everything else that's supposed to be here. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
So, what have we got? We've got... what on my left? | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
Well, the large white building you've got there | 0:04:08 | 0:04:10 | |
is the first permanent building that was ever built on the site | 0:04:10 | 0:04:13 | |
-and that was built in 1918 by the Royal Engineers. -OK. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:17 | |
So what is the blue building over there? | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
Our current headquarters. | 0:04:19 | 0:04:21 | |
It seems to have quite a lot of security outside, doesn't it? | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
A lot of police, a lot of physical security | 0:04:24 | 0:04:26 | |
and a lot of electronic security. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:28 | |
Has there ever been a breach? | 0:04:28 | 0:04:30 | |
Not into any of the sensitive areas that we have. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:33 | |
Security is very tight | 0:04:34 | 0:04:37 | |
and has affected the way we make this film. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:40 | |
What's that sort of industrial thing over there? | 0:04:40 | 0:04:42 | |
Sorry, I can't give you any details on that. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:45 | |
We can't show many buildings. | 0:04:45 | 0:04:47 | |
We can't fully identify the staff | 0:04:47 | 0:04:50 | |
or even reveal their exact roles. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
There's one quite strange looking building over there. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:56 | |
That one stands out. | 0:04:56 | 0:04:58 | |
That's one of the buildings that we don't discuss. | 0:04:58 | 0:05:00 | |
And in looking at it, you have no idea what is going on inside them. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:03 | |
Well, that's the idea. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:05 | |
There are plenty of forms of technology | 0:05:05 | 0:05:06 | |
-that are looking at this site. -Suitably anonymous. | 0:05:06 | 0:05:10 | |
Some of it is a strange old mixture of slightly dilapidated-looking | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
stuff over there and brand-new-looking stuff over there. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
The site permanently evolves | 0:05:16 | 0:05:18 | |
because the threat to the UK, | 0:05:18 | 0:05:20 | |
to defence, is permanently evolving. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:23 | |
Today, the military needs to respond | 0:05:27 | 0:05:29 | |
to a barrage of new and unfamiliar threats - | 0:05:29 | 0:05:34 | |
rogue nations, | 0:05:34 | 0:05:36 | |
terrorists, | 0:05:36 | 0:05:37 | |
asymmetric warfare. | 0:05:37 | 0:05:40 | |
The man running Porton Down is Jonathan Lyle. | 0:05:40 | 0:05:44 | |
He is the only member of staff we can fully identify. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:47 | |
He manages 3,000 scientists | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
and their £0.5 billion annual budget. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:54 | |
And it's really important that we anticipate future technologies, | 0:05:56 | 0:05:59 | |
making sure that we are ahead of the game | 0:05:59 | 0:06:01 | |
in terms of scientific advances | 0:06:01 | 0:06:03 | |
that could give our armed forces an advantage. | 0:06:03 | 0:06:05 | |
And, you know, we were formed 100 years ago this year | 0:06:05 | 0:06:09 | |
to respond to the threat of chemical weapons | 0:06:09 | 0:06:11 | |
that had emerged in the First World War | 0:06:11 | 0:06:13 | |
and I'm very proud of 100 years of doing that here today. | 0:06:13 | 0:06:17 | |
Spring, 1915. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:26 | |
A year into the war | 0:06:28 | 0:06:29 | |
the Germans used a new weapon, | 0:06:29 | 0:06:31 | |
a chemical weapon, | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
chlorine gas. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:35 | |
With no idea what it was, | 0:06:37 | 0:06:39 | |
the soldiers inhaled the deadly cloud. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:41 | |
It reacted with water in their lungs, producing hydrochloric acid. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:47 | |
The burns caused suffocation and death. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:49 | |
In that first attack, over 800 died. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
A new terror spread across the Western Front. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:58 | |
Britain's Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, | 0:07:00 | 0:07:03 | |
demanded an immediate response. | 0:07:03 | 0:07:05 | |
The result was a new laboratory, | 0:07:08 | 0:07:10 | |
away from prying eyes, | 0:07:10 | 0:07:12 | |
in the heart of rural England. | 0:07:12 | 0:07:14 | |
They called it the War Department Experimental Ground. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:20 | |
Porton. | 0:07:20 | 0:07:21 | |
It rapidly became like a mini town. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:28 | |
There were carpenters, plumbers, even a blacksmith. | 0:07:28 | 0:07:31 | |
Over there, there were some chemical laboratories | 0:07:31 | 0:07:34 | |
and over there were huts where they stored animals for experiments. | 0:07:34 | 0:07:39 | |
And this, the HQ, was the first permanent building. | 0:07:39 | 0:07:42 | |
The Germans had come up with this new, very potent weapon, | 0:07:47 | 0:07:51 | |
so there was a real pressure on Porton | 0:07:51 | 0:07:55 | |
to get to grips with what exactly this new weapon was, | 0:07:55 | 0:07:59 | |
how it worked, | 0:07:59 | 0:08:01 | |
how it could be used as a weapon and how they could defend against it. | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
Porton Down's priority was to develop their own chemical weapons | 0:08:06 | 0:08:11 | |
to retaliate. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:12 | |
From the moment Britain is developing a chemical warfare | 0:08:13 | 0:08:17 | |
capability you see officials stating that they only can | 0:08:17 | 0:08:22 | |
get an understanding of defensive operation | 0:08:22 | 0:08:25 | |
by doing, actually, also offensive research. | 0:08:25 | 0:08:27 | |
They tested the new weapons in their own back yard, | 0:08:34 | 0:08:38 | |
a 7,000-acre firing range. | 0:08:38 | 0:08:40 | |
Down there in the bowl they would have had canisters | 0:08:45 | 0:08:48 | |
full of poison gas and they would be released either by a timer or | 0:08:48 | 0:08:52 | |
perhaps by somebody sort of opening it up. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:55 | |
They also filled shells with poison gas and fired them | 0:08:55 | 0:08:59 | |
from Battery Hill over there, | 0:08:59 | 0:09:00 | |
up that way towards the target. | 0:09:00 | 0:09:03 | |
Now, many of those shells actually failed to explode, | 0:09:03 | 0:09:05 | |
which means that the hills around here are riddled with shells | 0:09:05 | 0:09:09 | |
which still contain active agent. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
Part of that legacy lies behind these gates | 0:09:17 | 0:09:20 | |
at a classified location within Porton Down's range. | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
Thousands of unexploded chemical weapons. | 0:09:26 | 0:09:29 | |
Some are from Porton. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:33 | |
Some were collected from other old firing ranges. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:36 | |
Mark is responsible for destroying these shells. | 0:09:37 | 0:09:40 | |
Wow. These things look... Wow. | 0:09:40 | 0:09:42 | |
This is our main storage area here | 0:09:43 | 0:09:47 | |
and these contain a chemical called stannic chloride. | 0:09:47 | 0:09:49 | |
OK. Blimey. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:51 | |
-Go in here. -And what would these contain? | 0:09:51 | 0:09:53 | |
-They would contain either phosgene or mustard. -Really? | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
-You see, the most common gas we get is mustard gas. -Yeah. | 0:09:57 | 0:10:00 | |
And second to that is bromobenzyl cyanide. | 0:10:00 | 0:10:03 | |
Those are the two most common ones, but we also have gases | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
such as chlorine, phosgene and hydrogen cyanide. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:09 | |
Many of these chemicals kill by interfering with | 0:10:13 | 0:10:16 | |
the uptake of oxygen in the lungs or in the blood. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
Many are still as deadly as the day they were made. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:24 | |
Just to show you stuff that has come in recently. | 0:10:26 | 0:10:29 | |
-So this is stuff that we've recovered from a beach. -Blimey. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:32 | |
-They are former chemical shells. -All of this came from a beach? -Yes. | 0:10:32 | 0:10:36 | |
-Can you tell me where? -I can't. | 0:10:36 | 0:10:39 | |
Right. OK. I kind of suspected you might say that. | 0:10:39 | 0:10:42 | |
And what would that contain? | 0:10:42 | 0:10:43 | |
Those, mustard or bromobenzyl cyanide. | 0:10:43 | 0:10:46 | |
Right. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:47 | |
All of them are extremely poisonous | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
and this is the only place in the UK licensed to destroy this stuff. | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
I'm going to follow one shell on its journey to destruction. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:06 | |
They begin by using powerful X-rays to look inside. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:10 | |
SIREN BEEPS | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
We can clearly see the liquid level here. So this is the liquid level. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:19 | |
The reason we do it at an angle | 0:11:19 | 0:11:20 | |
is so we can depict that it is a liquid level | 0:11:20 | 0:11:22 | |
-cos if we did it upright you couldn't tell whether it's a solid or a liquid. -Right. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:27 | |
Next, they need to identify exactly what is in the shell | 0:11:27 | 0:11:30 | |
using a neutron beam. | 0:11:30 | 0:11:32 | |
Chemical weapons each have their own unique atomic signature. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
This is the neutron activation analysis result. | 0:11:42 | 0:11:45 | |
As we can see on here, we've got the various elements that come up | 0:11:45 | 0:11:49 | |
and that's high confidence that those elements are present | 0:11:49 | 0:11:52 | |
-within the shell. -Right. | 0:11:52 | 0:11:54 | |
So that immediately tells us that we have mustard gas in it. | 0:11:54 | 0:11:58 | |
Mustard gas is one of the most infamous chemical agents of all time. | 0:11:59 | 0:12:03 | |
This shell will now continue its journey to destruction. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:09 | |
To find out more about mustard gas | 0:12:14 | 0:12:17 | |
I'm going to a part of Porton Down | 0:12:17 | 0:12:19 | |
where cameras have never been before. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:21 | |
Now, this is very unusual | 0:12:24 | 0:12:26 | |
because we are in a high security part of Porton Down, | 0:12:26 | 0:12:30 | |
which is where they make some of the CWAs, | 0:12:30 | 0:12:34 | |
the chemical warfare agents. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:36 | |
In fact, we're about to see it happen. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:38 | |
Only a small handful of scientists are allowed to make them | 0:12:40 | 0:12:44 | |
and only then for specific research purposes. | 0:12:44 | 0:12:46 | |
Marcus is one of them. | 0:12:48 | 0:12:49 | |
Hello. I'd better not... Do I shake your hand? | 0:12:49 | 0:12:52 | |
-Hi, there. -Nice to meet you. -Welcome to two-five. | 0:12:52 | 0:12:54 | |
Hi, there. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:56 | |
Right. A big skull and crossbones on that one. | 0:12:56 | 0:12:58 | |
That's right, yeah, we keep them in these, | 0:12:58 | 0:13:01 | |
what we call toxic carriers | 0:13:01 | 0:13:02 | |
and inside we've got the mustard itself. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
"Those who've inhaled it describe it as smelling like mustard or garlic." | 0:13:06 | 0:13:11 | |
It's frozen, look. | 0:13:11 | 0:13:12 | |
So, at 14 degrees it freezes and just becomes like ice. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:17 | |
And that's what it looks like. | 0:13:17 | 0:13:18 | |
So it was one of the real things that people feared. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:22 | |
Again, the First World War, presumably now, | 0:13:22 | 0:13:24 | |
since it's still being used, | 0:13:24 | 0:13:26 | |
and was that because it kind of hung around for a long time? | 0:13:26 | 0:13:29 | |
Yeah, it's one of the more persistent of the agents | 0:13:29 | 0:13:32 | |
but it's more because, you know, you get it on your skin | 0:13:32 | 0:13:36 | |
and it slowly sort of works its way in | 0:13:36 | 0:13:41 | |
and then gives you these huge debilitating blisters. | 0:13:41 | 0:13:44 | |
Incredibly painful, but it doesn't kill you. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:48 | |
Unless we get it right down into your lungs | 0:13:48 | 0:13:50 | |
you are likely to survive if you get mustard on your skin, yeah. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:53 | |
But just horrifically painful? | 0:13:53 | 0:13:54 | |
Horrifically painful, big blisters, no real treatment for these things. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:59 | |
Now, this is an atlas of gas poisoning | 0:14:04 | 0:14:07 | |
and it was distributed by the British government to doctors | 0:14:07 | 0:14:11 | |
on the front line to let them know just what they were facing. | 0:14:11 | 0:14:15 | |
These images paint a shocking picture | 0:14:18 | 0:14:20 | |
of the horror of mustard gas. | 0:14:20 | 0:14:23 | |
He actually was very unlucky because he just sat on ground | 0:14:23 | 0:14:26 | |
which had been contaminated by poison gas | 0:14:26 | 0:14:28 | |
and it managed to seep through his clothing | 0:14:28 | 0:14:31 | |
and onto his buttocks, | 0:14:31 | 0:14:32 | |
and you can see, here, they are all red, they are blistered. | 0:14:32 | 0:14:35 | |
This must have been incredibly painful but he made a full recovery. | 0:14:35 | 0:14:38 | |
There's a painting here, gangrene of the foot. | 0:14:38 | 0:14:41 | |
This is caused by chlorine poisoning | 0:14:41 | 0:14:43 | |
and this guy actually survived, | 0:14:43 | 0:14:45 | |
but a couple of his toes went black, shrivelled and had to be removed. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:49 | |
And finally, we have another picture here, | 0:14:51 | 0:14:54 | |
and it's obviously postmortem, | 0:14:54 | 0:14:56 | |
and it shows his trachea, | 0:14:56 | 0:14:58 | |
and you can see it's horrible, it's red, | 0:14:58 | 0:15:01 | |
it's inflamed and it's just full of pus. | 0:15:01 | 0:15:04 | |
And this guy almost certainly sort of drowned in his own... | 0:15:04 | 0:15:07 | |
Yeah. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:09 | |
A terrible, terrible way to go. | 0:15:09 | 0:15:11 | |
"If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood | 0:15:15 | 0:15:18 | |
"Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, | 0:15:18 | 0:15:22 | |
"Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud | 0:15:22 | 0:15:25 | |
"Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, | 0:15:25 | 0:15:30 | |
"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
"To children ardent for some desperate glory, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:37 | |
"The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est | 0:15:37 | 0:15:40 | |
"Pro patria mori." | 0:15:40 | 0:15:41 | |
In response to the deadly gas attacks | 0:15:50 | 0:15:53 | |
and the fear they created, | 0:15:53 | 0:15:55 | |
Porton Down's scientists began developing masks | 0:15:55 | 0:15:58 | |
to protect the troops. | 0:15:58 | 0:15:59 | |
So this is where it all begins, is it? | 0:15:59 | 0:16:02 | |
'Colin manages today's respirator technology, | 0:16:02 | 0:16:04 | |
'which has come a long way from the Black Veil.' | 0:16:04 | 0:16:08 | |
It doesn't look very effective. What would this have been impregnated with? | 0:16:08 | 0:16:11 | |
That would have been impregnated with sodium thiosulphate, | 0:16:11 | 0:16:14 | |
washing soda or sodium carbonate and glycerin. | 0:16:14 | 0:16:17 | |
So that would've reacted chemically with the chlorine. | 0:16:17 | 0:16:20 | |
And would that have worked at all? | 0:16:20 | 0:16:22 | |
It would have been better than nothing. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:24 | |
It would probably provide some sort of escape capability | 0:16:24 | 0:16:26 | |
to the wearer, but... So that was the very first response. | 0:16:26 | 0:16:30 | |
And this one is obviously pretty early as well. | 0:16:30 | 0:16:32 | |
Yeah, this was round about 1916. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:34 | |
There were various variants of the hood-type respirator. | 0:16:34 | 0:16:37 | |
Again, it is a fabric impregnated with chemical. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:41 | |
Would this have protected you against chlorine? | 0:16:41 | 0:16:43 | |
It would have provided protection against chlorine | 0:16:43 | 0:16:46 | |
and this particular version would have provided protection against phosgene as well. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:49 | |
What sort of period is this? | 0:16:49 | 0:16:51 | |
This is probably about 1916, 1917. | 0:16:51 | 0:16:53 | |
This is the light-type respirator. | 0:16:53 | 0:16:55 | |
Now you are starting to see something that resembles | 0:16:55 | 0:16:58 | |
a respirator of today. | 0:16:58 | 0:16:59 | |
It's got a rudimentary face piece, but importantly now, | 0:16:59 | 0:17:02 | |
we have an activated carbon filter. | 0:17:02 | 0:17:05 | |
-This black stuff here? -Yeah. | 0:17:05 | 0:17:06 | |
The absorptive properties of activated carbon | 0:17:06 | 0:17:08 | |
have been known for millennia. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:10 | |
So by this point you've got something which is really quite good. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:14 | |
Yeah. It's a far cry from the first response. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:17 | |
-Gas, gas, gas. -Gas, gas, gas. -Gas, gas, gas. | 0:17:18 | 0:17:22 | |
Because of the very real threat of being attacked by chemical agents, | 0:17:22 | 0:17:26 | |
modern soldiers are still trained in how to respond. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:29 | |
This is the latest in a long line of gas mask technology. | 0:17:31 | 0:17:35 | |
It is the general service respirator, | 0:17:35 | 0:17:38 | |
the GSR. | 0:17:38 | 0:17:39 | |
At Porton Down, we are putting it through its paces. | 0:17:43 | 0:17:46 | |
All this testing equipment is designed to find out | 0:17:49 | 0:17:52 | |
if the mask leaks. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:54 | |
How heavy is this one? | 0:17:55 | 0:17:56 | |
It's about 12 kilos. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:58 | |
Not that heavy by soldier standards. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
OK. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:02 | |
This mist looks really nasty, | 0:18:04 | 0:18:06 | |
but it is actually a harmless oil-based aerosol. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:10 | |
My exercises are designed to reflect real battlefield movements - | 0:18:10 | 0:18:14 | |
crawling, | 0:18:14 | 0:18:16 | |
running, | 0:18:16 | 0:18:18 | |
digging. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:20 | |
Sensors monitor the quality of the air I am breathing | 0:18:21 | 0:18:25 | |
because in a real chemical attack | 0:18:25 | 0:18:27 | |
even the slightest leak could be fatal. | 0:18:27 | 0:18:30 | |
Thanks. Phew. | 0:18:34 | 0:18:37 | |
Bits coming off. Right. Ooh, God. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
That was quite close to phobia, I must admit. | 0:18:39 | 0:18:41 | |
And it's also very weird being in there with all that, | 0:18:41 | 0:18:43 | |
sort of, smoke and particles, but I guess the next thing to do is | 0:18:43 | 0:18:47 | |
find out whether this thing actually protected me. So, how did I do? | 0:18:47 | 0:18:50 | |
-Well, as expected, Michael, you got excellent results. -OK. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:53 | |
You can see very, very low levels of ingress within the respirator. | 0:18:53 | 0:18:58 | |
Reassuring, I guess, that it worked. | 0:18:58 | 0:19:00 | |
And under real conditions you can see you've got excellent results. | 0:19:00 | 0:19:03 | |
Because there's one thing putting it on in the lab-type situation | 0:19:03 | 0:19:05 | |
-and there's another, kind of, actually running around with it. -That's right. | 0:19:05 | 0:19:10 | |
Back in the classified area within Porton's range, | 0:19:15 | 0:19:19 | |
the shell containing mustard is ready to be destroyed. | 0:19:19 | 0:19:23 | |
They are now in a sealed chamber, effectively a large lab there, | 0:19:34 | 0:19:38 | |
and the shell has been deep frozen so the agent inside it, | 0:19:38 | 0:19:41 | |
the chemical agent, is now definitely solid | 0:19:41 | 0:19:44 | |
and in a moment they're going to take it over there | 0:19:44 | 0:19:46 | |
and they're going to chop it in half, | 0:19:46 | 0:19:48 | |
separating out the explosive bit from the chemical agent bit. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:52 | |
There it goes. | 0:19:55 | 0:19:56 | |
Opening the shell demands great care and precision. | 0:19:59 | 0:20:02 | |
Cutting too high could detonate it. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:05 | |
Once the saw is set, the team is evacuated | 0:20:09 | 0:20:13 | |
to 100 metres away. | 0:20:13 | 0:20:14 | |
-So this is all remote controlled. -Yes, a remote controlled bandsaw. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:20 | |
And our aim is to separate the explosive component with the agent. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:25 | |
Cutting... | 0:20:25 | 0:20:28 | |
Now. | 0:20:28 | 0:20:29 | |
-I can see the steam coming off now. -That's the agent... -Right, OK. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:43 | |
So that is actually mustard gas, mustard liquid, coming out, is it? | 0:20:43 | 0:20:49 | |
You can actually see the agent itself around the roller bearings. | 0:20:49 | 0:20:52 | |
-There's a nice pool. -You wouldn't want to be in that room. -No. | 0:20:52 | 0:20:57 | |
Will it sort of evaporate off, or just hang around there? | 0:20:57 | 0:21:00 | |
-No, it'll hang around there for a considerable amount of time. -OK. | 0:21:00 | 0:21:04 | |
We're nearly through now. | 0:21:07 | 0:21:09 | |
There you go. It's stopped. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
Power off. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:13 | |
Just to confirm, four miles... | 0:21:21 | 0:21:25 | |
Roger. | 0:21:25 | 0:21:27 | |
The mustard is still highly toxic, | 0:21:27 | 0:21:29 | |
poisoning the air inside the laboratory. | 0:21:29 | 0:21:31 | |
With the detonator removed, | 0:21:33 | 0:21:34 | |
the mustard gas can finally be destroyed. | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
It's incinerated at over 800 degrees for 24 hours. | 0:21:39 | 0:21:44 | |
This is painfully slow work and there are thousands | 0:21:48 | 0:21:52 | |
of unexploded shells waiting to be destroyed. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
And more being found every year. | 0:21:56 | 0:21:58 | |
Removing the legacy of Britain's chemical weapons could take | 0:21:59 | 0:22:03 | |
a generation. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:05 | |
In 1925, the major world powers signed the Geneva Protocol, | 0:22:10 | 0:22:15 | |
which banned the use of chemical weapons in warfare. | 0:22:15 | 0:22:19 | |
But surprisingly, it didn't ban their development. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:22 | |
During the Second World War, the British military became | 0:22:25 | 0:22:29 | |
convinced that Hitler was about to renege on the Geneva Protocol | 0:22:29 | 0:22:34 | |
and unleash chemical weapons. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:36 | |
To keep ahead, in 1942, Porton Down started their own secret project | 0:22:38 | 0:22:45 | |
to produce a completely different type of weapon. | 0:22:45 | 0:22:48 | |
A weapon that harnessed nature. | 0:22:48 | 0:22:50 | |
Not chemical, but biological. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:56 | |
Biological weapons are live organisms. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:05 | |
Biological weapons can replicate themselves. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:07 | |
If you're using an infectious disease, once you've infected | 0:23:07 | 0:23:12 | |
a certain part of the population, that would then spread on its own. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:16 | |
Their potential impact is unbounded. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
This is Gruinard Island. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:28 | |
During the war, it was the unlikely location of Porton Down's new | 0:23:29 | 0:23:33 | |
biological weapons testing programme. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:36 | |
It would be the West's first weapon of mass destruction. | 0:23:38 | 0:23:42 | |
'It was here in 1942 that the very first scientifically | 0:23:44 | 0:23:47 | |
'controlled BW field trials were carried out. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:51 | |
'Sheep were used for the trials.' | 0:23:51 | 0:23:53 | |
Morning. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:56 | |
Very good, thanks. | 0:23:56 | 0:23:58 | |
The island sits in a wide bay, | 0:24:01 | 0:24:03 | |
far from any centre of population on the north-west coast of Scotland. | 0:24:03 | 0:24:08 | |
It was the perfect place for Porton scientists to secretly | 0:24:09 | 0:24:12 | |
test their new weapon. | 0:24:12 | 0:24:14 | |
To do their tests, they needed a bleak, isolated island, | 0:24:19 | 0:24:23 | |
some animals to experiment on, and a suitably lethal microbe. | 0:24:23 | 0:24:28 | |
The microbe they used was Bacillus anthracis, anthrax. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:36 | |
It causes severe and often fatal respiratory collapse. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:39 | |
And it's persistent. | 0:24:44 | 0:24:46 | |
Its spores can lie dormant in soil for decades. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:49 | |
After Porton had done their experiments, | 0:24:49 | 0:24:51 | |
the island had to be quarantined for 40 years, | 0:24:51 | 0:24:55 | |
before it was finally cleaned up. | 0:24:55 | 0:24:57 | |
This is a bleak place, isn't it? | 0:25:00 | 0:25:02 | |
The plan was to build an anthrax bomb | 0:25:06 | 0:25:09 | |
and test its effectiveness on sheep. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:11 | |
The bacterium that causes anthrax is a very hardy little organism. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:18 | |
It forms a spore, which protects it against high temperatures | 0:25:18 | 0:25:21 | |
and extreme environments. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:23 | |
But how do you turn the spore into a weapon? | 0:25:23 | 0:25:26 | |
This is an aerosol. Tiny drops of liquid in air. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:39 | |
And if I play them by this machine, you can | 0:25:39 | 0:25:42 | |
see they are absolutely tiny. | 0:25:42 | 0:25:45 | |
One to three microns across. | 0:25:45 | 0:25:47 | |
Which means there are probably about a 30th of the width | 0:25:47 | 0:25:50 | |
of a human hair. | 0:25:50 | 0:25:52 | |
The thing is that because they are so small, | 0:25:52 | 0:25:54 | |
if there were spores inside there, they would go deep inside the lungs. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:59 | |
It also means that they can travel considerable distances. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:03 | |
The challenge was to suspend anthrax in an aerosol. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:08 | |
'The sheep are being put into exposure crates | 0:26:10 | 0:26:14 | |
'to ensure that it faces the cloud.' | 0:26:14 | 0:26:16 | |
I'm going to recreate part of their experiment, using a harmless cloud. | 0:26:20 | 0:26:24 | |
'The bomb is fired and the wind carries the cloud towards | 0:26:33 | 0:26:36 | |
'the line of animals and impingers.' | 0:26:36 | 0:26:38 | |
Downwind, a particle counter measures | 0:26:41 | 0:26:44 | |
the concentration of the aerosol. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
Can you imagine sort of sheep tethered here, | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
having no idea what's about to hit them? | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
The anthrax spores just spreading out. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:56 | |
And the particles are going to hit me now. | 0:26:57 | 0:27:00 | |
Yep, there they go, shooting up. We're now at 40,000, 68,000. | 0:27:00 | 0:27:04 | |
In the original experiment, every particle would contain some spores. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:11 | |
And they would have started to breathe in, | 0:27:12 | 0:27:15 | |
the spores would have gone deep into their lungs. | 0:27:15 | 0:27:18 | |
It's actually very, very chilling when you see it | 0:27:18 | 0:27:21 | |
and you can imagine the scientists over there and the sheep here. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:25 | |
The experiment worked. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:32 | |
In fact, the results were even better than they had dared hope. | 0:27:34 | 0:27:37 | |
'On the third day after exposure, the casualties begin. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:42 | |
'Dead sheep can be seen further down the line. | 0:27:42 | 0:27:45 | |
'They show conclusively that bacteria could be put | 0:27:45 | 0:27:47 | |
'up by a simple weapon and that the results might be much more | 0:27:47 | 0:27:51 | |
'striking than with a chemical filling. | 0:27:51 | 0:27:53 | |
'This was, of course, something that had never been demonstrated before.' | 0:27:53 | 0:27:57 | |
Although in World War I, chemical weapons were often deadly, | 0:27:59 | 0:28:03 | |
many like mustard injured more than they killed. | 0:28:03 | 0:28:06 | |
Anthrax was different. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:10 | |
It had the potential to produce massive fatalities. | 0:28:10 | 0:28:13 | |
An anthrax bomb went into production. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:19 | |
Thankfully, Britain never had to use it. | 0:28:19 | 0:28:22 | |
Which turned out to be a wise decision. | 0:28:24 | 0:28:27 | |
As the war ended, the Allies discovered that Nazi | 0:28:31 | 0:28:34 | |
scientists had perfected a new type of chemical weapon. | 0:28:34 | 0:28:37 | |
A nerve agent called sarin. | 0:28:42 | 0:28:44 | |
A colourless, odourless liquid. | 0:28:47 | 0:28:50 | |
Lethal in even the tiniest amounts. | 0:28:50 | 0:28:53 | |
In this harrowing footage from Sweden, | 0:28:53 | 0:28:57 | |
a rabbit is given a lethal dose of sarin. | 0:28:57 | 0:29:00 | |
'This is an authentic laboratory record. | 0:29:02 | 0:29:04 | |
'The effects would be the same in man. | 0:29:04 | 0:29:07 | |
'The pupils shrink, the eyes and nose run, the mouth drools. | 0:29:09 | 0:29:15 | |
'The chest is tight and the heart slows down.' | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
Inside one of Porton Down's most secure laboratories, | 0:29:28 | 0:29:31 | |
I'm about to encounter the Nazis' most infamous nerve agent. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:36 | |
That's a crude version, so that's impure sarin. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:49 | |
-And that is what pure sarin looks like. -Really? | 0:29:49 | 0:29:52 | |
-Don't get too close. -I'm being told not to get too close. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:55 | |
-You can put your hands on here. -I'm a bit enthusiastic. -Don't get close. | 0:29:55 | 0:29:59 | |
Thank you very much, yeah. | 0:29:59 | 0:30:01 | |
Now, this is very different to anything that I've seen before | 0:30:01 | 0:30:04 | |
because this is sarin, which is a hugely notorious liquid. | 0:30:04 | 0:30:09 | |
It's actually a nerve agent. Nasty symptoms associated with it. | 0:30:09 | 0:30:13 | |
This really is very, very evil stuff. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:15 | |
Now, your nerves are a bit like an electrical system. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:21 | |
What would normally happen is you stub your toe, for example, | 0:30:21 | 0:30:24 | |
the signal goes down the wires to a synapse, represented by the bell. BELL RINGS | 0:30:24 | 0:30:29 | |
Then, the nerves release a neurotransmitter called | 0:30:30 | 0:30:34 | |
acetylcholine, which carries the signal across the synapse | 0:30:34 | 0:30:39 | |
to the brain, saying "pain". | 0:30:39 | 0:30:41 | |
And then your body produces an enzyme called | 0:30:41 | 0:30:43 | |
acetylcholinesterase and switches the whole thing off, | 0:30:43 | 0:30:47 | |
stopping it continuously firing. | 0:30:47 | 0:30:50 | |
What sarin and other nerve agents do is | 0:30:50 | 0:30:53 | |
they prevent the enzyme from breaking down the neurotransmitter. | 0:30:53 | 0:30:58 | |
And your nerves are just switched on all the time. | 0:30:58 | 0:31:01 | |
The result is complete and utter chaos. | 0:31:01 | 0:31:03 | |
You can't breathe properly because you can't control your in | 0:31:03 | 0:31:07 | |
and your out and you asphyxiate. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:09 | |
You lose control of your bowels, you lose control of your bladder, | 0:31:09 | 0:31:12 | |
you basically urinate, you defecate, and you die very, very badly. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:16 | |
One Porton official once described the one moment where we had been | 0:31:21 | 0:31:25 | |
found with our trousers down and that was nerve gas. | 0:31:25 | 0:31:29 | |
They had not anticipated this type of agent. It was extremely toxic. | 0:31:29 | 0:31:35 | |
It was fast acting. | 0:31:35 | 0:31:37 | |
And it was able to be used in different types of environment, | 0:31:37 | 0:31:40 | |
from ground contamination through to inhalation. | 0:31:40 | 0:31:44 | |
So it had multiple ways of being applied in combat. | 0:31:44 | 0:31:47 | |
'Muscles go into uncontrollable spasm. | 0:31:48 | 0:31:52 | |
'Breathing is paralysed and death follows.' | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
Close down Porton Down! Close it down! | 0:31:59 | 0:32:03 | |
Animal testing has always been a key part of the work at Porton Down | 0:32:03 | 0:32:09 | |
and a matter of increasing public concern. | 0:32:09 | 0:32:12 | |
Animal research. | 0:32:12 | 0:32:14 | |
-Clearly, a lot of animals have passed through Porton Down. -Yeah. | 0:32:14 | 0:32:17 | |
What are your thoughts about it? | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
I would start by saying that we use animals in experiments for a purpose | 0:32:20 | 0:32:24 | |
and that is to give our armed forces the protection that they need. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:28 | |
We do it in a very regulated environment, | 0:32:28 | 0:32:30 | |
so we are regulated under the relevant legislation | 0:32:30 | 0:32:32 | |
that has been passed by parliament and we are regulated by Home Office inspectors who have their own | 0:32:32 | 0:32:37 | |
passes and can come here at any time, | 0:32:37 | 0:32:40 | |
as they do, to examine the welfare of our animals and what we do. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:43 | |
And lastly, we've done a lot in the last decade, | 0:32:43 | 0:32:47 | |
under the three Rs - replacement, refinement, | 0:32:47 | 0:32:51 | |
and reduction - to reduce the number of animals that we use. | 0:32:51 | 0:32:55 | |
In the 1950s, sarin experiments on animals couldn't give | 0:33:01 | 0:33:05 | |
Porton Down scientists all the answers they wanted. | 0:33:05 | 0:33:08 | |
The pressures of the Cold War led to the | 0:33:13 | 0:33:16 | |
intensification of a particularly controversial | 0:33:16 | 0:33:20 | |
type of experiment - the use of chemical agents on human volunteers. | 0:33:20 | 0:33:24 | |
At its height, they carried out over 500 human experiments a year. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:32 | |
Then, in May 1953, | 0:33:35 | 0:33:37 | |
something happened that cast a very long shadow over Porton Down. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:41 | |
An RAF volunteer called Ronald Maddison took | 0:33:41 | 0:33:44 | |
part in an experiment involving sarin. | 0:33:44 | 0:33:47 | |
He went into the gas chamber. | 0:33:48 | 0:33:51 | |
A little while later, he says he feels sick. | 0:33:51 | 0:33:55 | |
He then collapses. | 0:33:55 | 0:33:57 | |
They frantically try to revive him, but in fact, | 0:33:57 | 0:34:01 | |
he had died at 11am that day, 45 minutes after going in to... | 0:34:01 | 0:34:05 | |
After being tested with nerve gas. | 0:34:05 | 0:34:07 | |
Maddison's death was a huge shock to people at Porton Down, | 0:34:07 | 0:34:12 | |
but no-one was prepared to take responsibility. | 0:34:12 | 0:34:16 | |
Instead, his cause of death was covered up. | 0:34:16 | 0:34:18 | |
The death of Ronald Maddison was one of the biggest cover-ups | 0:34:21 | 0:34:24 | |
of the Cold War. | 0:34:24 | 0:34:27 | |
In that classic way of how British government works, | 0:34:27 | 0:34:31 | |
this tragedy happened and the only thought that the government had was, | 0:34:31 | 0:34:37 | |
let's hush it up, which they did do successfully for decades. | 0:34:37 | 0:34:41 | |
One of the darkest periods in the history of Porton Down is | 0:34:41 | 0:34:44 | |
the death of a young volunteer in 1953 | 0:34:44 | 0:34:47 | |
and it wasn't so much his death, as the fact that the | 0:34:47 | 0:34:50 | |
events around it were kept secret for such a long time. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:53 | |
Can you explain to me why it was considered necessary to do that? | 0:34:53 | 0:34:57 | |
Well, as you say, that was the 1950s, a very long time ago, and the | 0:34:57 | 0:35:02 | |
British government has acknowledged that things were not done well. | 0:35:02 | 0:35:06 | |
Can you explain to me the thinking behind it? What were they thinking? | 0:35:06 | 0:35:09 | |
-Do they think - we can just keep this thing buried for a very long time? -I can't answer for people of | 0:35:09 | 0:35:13 | |
that time. All I can say is the British government has acknowledged that | 0:35:13 | 0:35:17 | |
mistakes were made and all I can say is that the laboratory that I lead | 0:35:17 | 0:35:20 | |
today operates to the very highest scientific and ethical standards. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:25 | |
In 2004, and after 50 years of campaigning, | 0:35:25 | 0:35:28 | |
Maddison's family finally got a new inquest. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:32 | |
My family has never known the truth and why he had to die so young. | 0:35:32 | 0:35:36 | |
We are grateful to the coroner for holding the inquest | 0:35:36 | 0:35:41 | |
so that we can finally know the truth. | 0:35:41 | 0:35:45 | |
The inquest declared that Ronald Maddison was unlawfully killed. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:49 | |
But it took two more years for the MoD to accept the verdict. | 0:35:51 | 0:35:56 | |
You understand that people are sometimes a bit | 0:35:57 | 0:36:00 | |
cynical about claims of transparency, granted the history? | 0:36:00 | 0:36:04 | |
-But it was a very long time ago. -OK. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:07 | |
So you're saying it couldn't happen now? | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
The standards we operate to are the very highest. | 0:36:09 | 0:36:11 | |
We had lots of scrutiny and we certainly don't do any experiments | 0:36:11 | 0:36:15 | |
of the character that led to that regrettable death in 1953. | 0:36:15 | 0:36:19 | |
Ronald Maddison's death came just as the Cold War was intensifying. | 0:36:27 | 0:36:32 | |
Porton Down accelerated their chemical weapons programme | 0:36:33 | 0:36:38 | |
on an industrial scale. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:40 | |
They developed a new nerve agent, up to 170 times more potent than sarin. | 0:36:41 | 0:36:47 | |
Venomous agent X. | 0:36:52 | 0:36:54 | |
VX. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:56 | |
Now, it is a nerve agent that is far more powerful than sarin. | 0:36:59 | 0:37:03 | |
Marcus is making some at the moment. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:06 | |
For obvious reasons, we're not going to dwell on the process. | 0:37:06 | 0:37:09 | |
Porton Down originally developed VX from an industrial pesticide, | 0:37:15 | 0:37:19 | |
which was banned when chemists realised just how lethal it was. | 0:37:19 | 0:37:25 | |
-What does VX do? -It's a nerve agent. | 0:37:26 | 0:37:30 | |
It acts in exactly the same way as sarin, but it's incredibly toxic. | 0:37:30 | 0:37:36 | |
Much more toxic than sarin. | 0:37:36 | 0:37:38 | |
-Wow. -A pinhead drop on your skin would be enough to kill you. | 0:37:38 | 0:37:42 | |
Why do you make it? | 0:37:46 | 0:37:48 | |
We need to understand it and we need to be confident that all | 0:37:48 | 0:37:52 | |
the equipment, the clothing, the detection gear, | 0:37:52 | 0:37:55 | |
that our operators, soldiers, have got, works and is effective, | 0:37:55 | 0:38:01 | |
should they ever, God forbid, come across something like this. | 0:38:01 | 0:38:04 | |
Cos this part is far higher risk from the point of view | 0:38:06 | 0:38:09 | |
of the agent coming out of containment. | 0:38:09 | 0:38:11 | |
If we put these on, just in case, if we get it on ourselves, | 0:38:11 | 0:38:14 | |
we can step straight into the shower in the corner and wash it off. | 0:38:14 | 0:38:17 | |
OK. Into the shower, right. | 0:38:17 | 0:38:20 | |
I guess that brings home the reality of how dangerous this stuff is. | 0:38:20 | 0:38:24 | |
To distil crude VX, they use a vacuum to lower the boiling point. | 0:38:28 | 0:38:32 | |
OK, can we clear the lab of everybody, except just Marcus | 0:38:35 | 0:38:39 | |
and the assistant at the back. | 0:38:39 | 0:38:40 | |
OK, so they're just applying the vacuum now. | 0:38:45 | 0:38:48 | |
-And they've asked me to get out of there, just in case. -OK, ready? | 0:38:48 | 0:38:52 | |
Sash is down. | 0:38:52 | 0:38:54 | |
Because it's so dangerous, | 0:38:55 | 0:38:56 | |
Marcus is only allowed to make a few millilitres. | 0:38:56 | 0:39:00 | |
OK, good to go? | 0:39:03 | 0:39:04 | |
That stuff is incredibly lethal. | 0:39:04 | 0:39:06 | |
OK, I think we're good to go. OK. | 0:39:18 | 0:39:20 | |
OK, so nothing exploded, I guess. | 0:39:23 | 0:39:25 | |
Nothing exploded. It's got an incredibly high vacuum on it now. | 0:39:25 | 0:39:29 | |
It's just starting to sort of come up. | 0:39:29 | 0:39:32 | |
You can see this liquid condensing and sort of going up | 0:39:32 | 0:39:34 | |
and going back down. | 0:39:34 | 0:39:36 | |
-Can you see that? -I do. -That's the pure VX, coming up. | 0:39:36 | 0:39:38 | |
So this stuff here, this is VX. How is it different to sarin? | 0:39:38 | 0:39:42 | |
There's probably enough there to kill tens | 0:39:42 | 0:39:46 | |
if not hundreds of thousands of people. | 0:39:46 | 0:39:49 | |
-Blimey. It's that lethal? -Yeah. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:52 | |
Tens to thousands of people. Right. | 0:39:52 | 0:39:54 | |
It would be horrendous. | 0:39:54 | 0:39:56 | |
Do you find any of this sort of scary? | 0:39:59 | 0:40:03 | |
-Um... It's always in the back of your mind, how toxic it is. -Yes. | 0:40:03 | 0:40:08 | |
VX is the most potent chemical weapon ever created. | 0:40:11 | 0:40:15 | |
It would also be the last Porton Down would ever develop. | 0:40:15 | 0:40:19 | |
And that's because by the end of the 1950s, | 0:40:22 | 0:40:24 | |
the British government had decided to focus its limited | 0:40:24 | 0:40:29 | |
resources on a very different weapon of mass destruction. | 0:40:29 | 0:40:33 | |
EXPLOSION | 0:40:36 | 0:40:38 | |
'Britain fires its first H bomb to join the United States | 0:40:40 | 0:40:43 | |
'and Russia as ranking atomic powers.' | 0:40:43 | 0:40:46 | |
The British thermonuclear bomb meant Porton Down's offensive | 0:40:46 | 0:40:50 | |
weapons programmes were terminated. | 0:40:50 | 0:40:52 | |
They didn't need another weapon of mass destruction, | 0:40:54 | 0:40:57 | |
they didn't need and biological weapons. | 0:40:57 | 0:41:00 | |
And the worry, I think, to some extent, | 0:41:00 | 0:41:03 | |
was that it wasn't that they were not good weapons, | 0:41:03 | 0:41:07 | |
militarily speaking, it was they didn't want chemical | 0:41:07 | 0:41:12 | |
and biological weapons to become a poor man's nuclear weapon. | 0:41:12 | 0:41:16 | |
'New work is undertaken on the development of munitions | 0:41:16 | 0:41:20 | |
'for the spreading of diseases. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:22 | |
'The research is limited to that necessary to enable | 0:41:22 | 0:41:24 | |
'an effective means of defence to be devised.' | 0:41:24 | 0:41:27 | |
But other nations didn't give up any of their chemical | 0:41:29 | 0:41:32 | |
and biological weapons programmes. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:35 | |
GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS | 0:41:35 | 0:41:38 | |
As the Cold War developed, Porton became concerned that the | 0:41:38 | 0:41:42 | |
USSR might detonate a biological bomb over Britain. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:46 | |
So, in secret, they sprayed aerosols over populated areas to try | 0:41:49 | 0:41:53 | |
and understand the impact of such an attack. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
The public were never told, | 0:41:56 | 0:41:58 | |
but the evidence suggests the aerosols were harmless. | 0:41:58 | 0:42:02 | |
You'd have spraying out clouds that would then waft in over cities, | 0:42:02 | 0:42:08 | |
inland, to see how biological weapons would travel, | 0:42:08 | 0:42:13 | |
environmentally, with air currents, exposure to sunlight, | 0:42:13 | 0:42:16 | |
all those things. | 0:42:16 | 0:42:18 | |
'As the cloud drifted inland, | 0:42:18 | 0:42:20 | |
'it was sampled by mobile sampling stations.' | 0:42:20 | 0:42:23 | |
What Porton would says is that what they were spraying was | 0:42:23 | 0:42:27 | |
completely harmless, | 0:42:27 | 0:42:29 | |
but again, this was a programme that happened in complete secrecy | 0:42:29 | 0:42:35 | |
and what Porton would argue was - of course we had to keep it secret | 0:42:35 | 0:42:40 | |
because we didn't want to tell the Russians what we were doing. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:44 | |
Thankfully, the Cold War ended without chemical or | 0:42:47 | 0:42:51 | |
biological weapons being used in anger. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:53 | |
But then, a new war began in the Middle East. | 0:42:57 | 0:43:00 | |
1988, Halabja, Iraq. | 0:43:08 | 0:43:11 | |
Saddam Hussein did what even Hitler wouldn't dare. | 0:43:13 | 0:43:16 | |
He unleashed sarin. | 0:43:20 | 0:43:22 | |
For the first time in history, a nerve agent was used in warfare. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:27 | |
'These are some of the 5,000 people killed by Iraqi gas | 0:43:29 | 0:43:33 | |
'attacks in and near the town of Halabja. | 0:43:33 | 0:43:36 | |
'The children look asleep on the grass.' | 0:43:36 | 0:43:39 | |
During the 1980s, | 0:43:41 | 0:43:42 | |
I was actually working on the current affairs programme | 0:43:42 | 0:43:45 | |
Newsnight and I used to sit in the basement watching some really, | 0:43:45 | 0:43:49 | |
really horrible footage from the Iran-Iraq War, | 0:43:49 | 0:43:52 | |
the sort of things we could never transmit. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:55 | |
I still remember it clearly. | 0:43:55 | 0:43:57 | |
There were so many dead people, so many dead children, | 0:43:57 | 0:44:01 | |
who had been killed horribly by a chemical weapon. | 0:44:01 | 0:44:05 | |
It's very disturbing, looking at these dead bodies, | 0:44:05 | 0:44:08 | |
because they look almost as if they're asleep, | 0:44:08 | 0:44:10 | |
but you know they actually died very, very badly. | 0:44:10 | 0:44:13 | |
Saddam Hussein had left the Geneva Protocol in tatters. | 0:44:21 | 0:44:25 | |
In response, the UN instigated a ban on all chemical weapons, | 0:44:28 | 0:44:33 | |
production, stockpiles, and use. | 0:44:33 | 0:44:36 | |
To ensure the world complied, | 0:44:38 | 0:44:40 | |
they created the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. | 0:44:40 | 0:44:44 | |
The OPCW's role is to inspect and police all sites where chemical | 0:44:54 | 0:44:58 | |
agents are present and that, of course, includes Porton Down. | 0:44:58 | 0:45:02 | |
We're going to check the X-ray records. | 0:45:03 | 0:45:05 | |
Unlike us, they can see whatever they want, anywhere, anytime. | 0:45:05 | 0:45:11 | |
Morning. | 0:45:19 | 0:45:21 | |
The inspection begins where the old chemical weapons are stored. | 0:45:21 | 0:45:25 | |
First, we'll check the new findings, since last inspections. | 0:45:25 | 0:45:28 | |
What we're doing today is actually verifying the declaration that's | 0:45:28 | 0:45:33 | |
been made and we're doing that through a physical inventory check. | 0:45:33 | 0:45:38 | |
And a record check. | 0:45:38 | 0:45:40 | |
8648. | 0:45:40 | 0:45:42 | |
8648, the big one. | 0:45:42 | 0:45:45 | |
Yeah, perfect. | 0:45:45 | 0:45:47 | |
I just want to check a few random ones. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:50 | |
It would be politically embarrassing for the UK to actually fail | 0:45:52 | 0:45:55 | |
a CWC inspection. | 0:45:55 | 0:45:57 | |
We have to ensure that all the information that we give | 0:45:57 | 0:46:00 | |
and the information that is verified by the OPCW is 100% accurate. | 0:46:00 | 0:46:04 | |
I can see there, look. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:08 | |
Yes. Standard mortar. | 0:46:08 | 0:46:10 | |
25 pounder. | 0:46:10 | 0:46:12 | |
8741. Perfect. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:14 | |
So far, so good. Everything's checking out so far. Yes. | 0:46:16 | 0:46:19 | |
Next, we would like to inspect inside. | 0:46:22 | 0:46:25 | |
-Yes. -Nothing is off limits to the OPCW. | 0:46:25 | 0:46:28 | |
We are about now to go to our incinerator site. | 0:46:29 | 0:46:34 | |
We declare that we incinerate the agent | 0:46:34 | 0:46:36 | |
when it comes out of the munitions and so they are just checking, | 0:46:36 | 0:46:40 | |
essentially, that is what we've done. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:43 | |
These are the OPCW guys. | 0:46:43 | 0:46:46 | |
Looking at the incineration records from the HS area, | 0:46:46 | 0:46:51 | |
so to prove that you've incinerated what we've sent down. | 0:46:51 | 0:46:55 | |
-8054, isn't it? -8054. | 0:46:55 | 0:46:58 | |
The UN strictly controls the amount of chemical agents | 0:46:58 | 0:47:01 | |
that can be manufactured or stockpiled in places like this. | 0:47:01 | 0:47:05 | |
We will show you what they look like when they come out. | 0:47:05 | 0:47:08 | |
Their inspectors also try to ensure that none can be | 0:47:08 | 0:47:11 | |
used for offensive purposes. | 0:47:11 | 0:47:13 | |
But not every country complies. | 0:47:13 | 0:47:16 | |
And terrorists, of course, are a law unto themselves. | 0:47:16 | 0:47:20 | |
OK, as you can see here, this is the end product, post-incineration. | 0:47:20 | 0:47:25 | |
If I can take an example of one piece here, | 0:47:25 | 0:47:28 | |
this is...well, was a 25-pounder shell. | 0:47:28 | 0:47:31 | |
-The residue agent will have all burnt off post 800 degrees. -Yup. | 0:47:31 | 0:47:36 | |
Everything they've wanted to check, | 0:47:36 | 0:47:37 | |
we've been able to supply the right information and the right | 0:47:37 | 0:47:41 | |
paperwork and they've seen the ammunition and by getting | 0:47:41 | 0:47:45 | |
a good report at the end of it shows that we're doing our jobs well. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:48 | |
Now, ideally, this would be the end of the story. | 0:47:54 | 0:47:56 | |
Chemical weapons being destroyed, the world saved. | 0:47:56 | 0:48:00 | |
Unfortunately, that is not what is happening. | 0:48:00 | 0:48:03 | |
If anything, chemical weapons are on the rise. | 0:48:03 | 0:48:06 | |
In fact, more are being used now than at any time | 0:48:06 | 0:48:09 | |
since the First World War. | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
The rise began with the number of chemical | 0:48:16 | 0:48:19 | |
and biological attacks by individuals and small groups. | 0:48:19 | 0:48:23 | |
'These people had been making their way to work | 0:48:23 | 0:48:25 | |
'when the nerve gas began to seep into the air.' | 0:48:25 | 0:48:28 | |
Japan, 13 civilians died after an attack on a subway. | 0:48:29 | 0:48:33 | |
The United States, a series of anthrax letters killed five people. | 0:48:33 | 0:48:37 | |
But in 2013, an attack in Syria killed hundreds. | 0:48:41 | 0:48:44 | |
'Something terrible has happened in a Damascus suburb. | 0:48:47 | 0:48:50 | |
'It has all the signs of a massive chemical attack.' | 0:48:50 | 0:48:53 | |
Nothing on this scale had been seen since Halabja. | 0:48:55 | 0:48:59 | |
And as the leading chemical weapons | 0:49:03 | 0:49:06 | |
laboratory in the world, samples came to Porton Down. | 0:49:06 | 0:49:09 | |
Hi, there. | 0:49:12 | 0:49:14 | |
In their secret forensic laboratory, Cerys was the scientist who | 0:49:16 | 0:49:20 | |
had to establish what chemical agent had killed so many people. | 0:49:20 | 0:49:24 | |
OK, so describe to me the sequence of events. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:29 | |
So, some of the first samples we received were blood, hair, | 0:49:29 | 0:49:32 | |
-and urine. -Did you know where it had come from? | 0:49:32 | 0:49:35 | |
We knew it had come from a person who thought that they'd been | 0:49:35 | 0:49:38 | |
exposed to some kind of chemical. | 0:49:38 | 0:49:41 | |
-OK. -At that time, it wasn't clear what the chemical was. | 0:49:41 | 0:49:45 | |
So all of the samples were extracted by different means. | 0:49:45 | 0:49:49 | |
Got the first results within probably eight or ten hours. | 0:49:49 | 0:49:53 | |
And then the confirmatory results across all the samples within | 0:49:53 | 0:49:57 | |
the next 24 hours. | 0:49:57 | 0:49:59 | |
The chemical agent that killed up to 1,500 men, | 0:50:00 | 0:50:04 | |
women and children in Damascus was the nerve agent sarin. | 0:50:04 | 0:50:09 | |
When you get the first results, | 0:50:09 | 0:50:11 | |
do you call everyone else in to go - look, we've found something? | 0:50:11 | 0:50:16 | |
With the very first set of samples, where it was the first time | 0:50:16 | 0:50:19 | |
that we'd seen evidence of sarin exposure, we did. | 0:50:19 | 0:50:22 | |
We kind of stood in front of the instruments, | 0:50:22 | 0:50:24 | |
scratching our heads, because none of us | 0:50:24 | 0:50:26 | |
had really expected to find a positive at that point. | 0:50:26 | 0:50:30 | |
Had you searched before? | 0:50:30 | 0:50:31 | |
No, it was the first set of samples that we'd | 0:50:31 | 0:50:34 | |
had from the incidents in Syria. | 0:50:34 | 0:50:37 | |
Samples in the Porton Down laboratory shows | 0:50:39 | 0:50:41 | |
the use of chemical weapons in that Damascus suburb. | 0:50:41 | 0:50:45 | |
Blood and hair tested positive for sarin. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:48 | |
The scale of the attack caused international outrage. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:52 | |
And the finger of blame seemed to point at the Syrian regime. | 0:50:52 | 0:50:55 | |
Military action soon followed. | 0:50:59 | 0:51:01 | |
If we fail to act, other tyrants will have no reason to think | 0:51:01 | 0:51:05 | |
twice about acquiring poison gas and using them. | 0:51:05 | 0:51:09 | |
And it could be easier for terrorist | 0:51:09 | 0:51:11 | |
organisations to obtain these weapons. | 0:51:11 | 0:51:14 | |
The war on terror has changed and broadened Porton Down's remit. | 0:51:18 | 0:51:23 | |
What was once solely a chemical and biological weapon facility | 0:51:25 | 0:51:29 | |
now focuses on all areas of modern warfare. | 0:51:29 | 0:51:32 | |
Developing battlefield equipment based on quantum physics. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:39 | |
Advanced ballistics protection. | 0:51:39 | 0:51:42 | |
You can get a measure here of the depth into flesh there. | 0:51:44 | 0:51:47 | |
And blast physics to protect troop carriers from IEDs. | 0:51:49 | 0:51:53 | |
-EXPLOSION -The sheer magnitudes of the pressures that we're seeing, | 0:51:53 | 0:51:57 | |
how that then interacts with an armoured vehicle, would allow me | 0:51:57 | 0:52:00 | |
to design something that's better, stronger, in the future. | 0:52:00 | 0:52:04 | |
We've continued to work in countering | 0:52:04 | 0:52:06 | |
the threat of chemical weapons and then biological weapons, | 0:52:06 | 0:52:09 | |
but today, we're about so much more than that. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:12 | |
It's about countering the threat to our armed forces, | 0:52:12 | 0:52:14 | |
however that is posed. Whether that is bullets, whether that's missiles, | 0:52:14 | 0:52:17 | |
whether that's improvised explosive devices, | 0:52:17 | 0:52:20 | |
it's about providing our armed forces with that protection. | 0:52:20 | 0:52:24 | |
An unlikely recruit in the search | 0:52:31 | 0:52:33 | |
for a protection is the orb web spider. | 0:52:33 | 0:52:36 | |
Her silk is being harvested to help scientists counter a new threat. | 0:52:39 | 0:52:43 | |
That one of the deadliest diseases known to man could be | 0:52:47 | 0:52:50 | |
used as a weapon. | 0:52:50 | 0:52:53 | |
So, once the spider's spun its web over the frames, then it | 0:52:53 | 0:52:57 | |
goes into this piece of equipment, which is called sow. | 0:52:57 | 0:53:01 | |
And it's basically how we expose it to the virus. | 0:53:01 | 0:53:04 | |
You can see there's a very narrow gap. | 0:53:04 | 0:53:07 | |
-So you spray some virus in here? -Spray the virus, bacteria, whatever you want to spray. | 0:53:07 | 0:53:11 | |
The aerosol passes over the frames and as the spider's web would | 0:53:11 | 0:53:14 | |
capture dew in the morning, it will capture the aerosol particles, | 0:53:14 | 0:53:18 | |
which will have viruses or bacteria, and we can count what's in there. | 0:53:18 | 0:53:22 | |
The virus Porton Down are using causes one of the most | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
contagious diseases in the world. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:32 | |
Two years ago, in West Africa, it killed over 10,000 people. | 0:53:34 | 0:53:38 | |
It is Ebola. | 0:53:41 | 0:53:42 | |
You will be familiar with the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone. | 0:53:44 | 0:53:47 | |
Of course, when something like that happens, | 0:53:47 | 0:53:50 | |
it causes questions to be asked of - here's a pathological agent, | 0:53:50 | 0:53:55 | |
could it be used by our adversaries, whether states or terrorists, | 0:53:55 | 0:54:00 | |
to threaten our armed forces or the British people? | 0:54:00 | 0:54:04 | |
To explore this potential threat, | 0:54:04 | 0:54:07 | |
Porton Down are spraying Ebola across spiders' | 0:54:07 | 0:54:10 | |
webs to discover just how long it remains contagious in air. | 0:54:10 | 0:54:14 | |
Stephen leads the experiment. | 0:54:17 | 0:54:19 | |
Why do you want to know how long these viruses will survive? | 0:54:22 | 0:54:26 | |
Well, the main purpose is to be able to add to that broad basis | 0:54:26 | 0:54:31 | |
of knowledge on how to control these viruses. | 0:54:31 | 0:54:34 | |
If they should get released, we have some sort of basic | 0:54:34 | 0:54:37 | |
understanding of how they may well transmit. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:40 | |
So it's adding to that broad basis of knowledge that we can then | 0:54:40 | 0:54:44 | |
add to other experiments that we do here. | 0:54:44 | 0:54:48 | |
Now, Ebola is a particularly dangerous virus, | 0:54:48 | 0:54:50 | |
so they don't want to run any risks at all that it might escape. | 0:54:50 | 0:54:54 | |
That's why we're in what's called a cat four laboratory. | 0:54:54 | 0:54:58 | |
This is as secure as it is possible to get. | 0:54:58 | 0:55:00 | |
So far at Porton Down, I've been allowed alongside all | 0:55:02 | 0:55:05 | |
the lethal chemical agents, but this time, I can't even get in the room. | 0:55:05 | 0:55:10 | |
So they're just in there, wearing their wonderful space age suits. | 0:55:12 | 0:55:16 | |
And very soon now, they're going to release the cloud of Ebola viruses. | 0:55:16 | 0:55:21 | |
Now, I can hear what they're saying through this earpiece. | 0:55:21 | 0:55:25 | |
I can, if necessary, talk to them. | 0:55:25 | 0:55:27 | |
And I can see, via this camera, what they're up to. | 0:55:27 | 0:55:30 | |
Hi there. How are you doing? | 0:55:30 | 0:55:33 | |
Hello, yeah. We're loading up the frames with the spiders' | 0:55:33 | 0:55:37 | |
webs on into the sow now, ready for us to turn | 0:55:37 | 0:55:40 | |
on the aerosolization kit and then expose the spiders' webs to Ebola. | 0:55:40 | 0:55:44 | |
Right, we're ready to go now. | 0:55:46 | 0:55:47 | |
Fantastic. | 0:55:47 | 0:55:49 | |
Do you ever get nervous at this point? | 0:55:49 | 0:55:51 | |
A little bit apprehensive, but no, we're OK. We're good to go now. | 0:55:53 | 0:55:57 | |
OK. | 0:55:57 | 0:55:59 | |
Right. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:01 | |
'OK.' | 0:56:01 | 0:56:02 | |
All in. | 0:56:02 | 0:56:04 | |
OK, we're going to start spraying virus in three, two, one, spray. | 0:56:04 | 0:56:10 | |
So, hopefully, what you can see there is the aerosol | 0:56:10 | 0:56:13 | |
nebuliser aerosolizing the Ebola virus. | 0:56:13 | 0:56:16 | |
And it's travelling down this pipe here, along these pipes | 0:56:16 | 0:56:20 | |
and is passing by the spiders' webs, through this sow, | 0:56:20 | 0:56:23 | |
and then back around and circulating round the machine and back out. | 0:56:23 | 0:56:26 | |
-20 seconds left. -There have been incidences in history, | 0:56:26 | 0:56:29 | |
for example the anthrax outbreak in Washington DC, | 0:56:29 | 0:56:32 | |
where terrorists used a pathogen to threaten a civilian population. | 0:56:32 | 0:56:37 | |
So, of course, we look at not just how to defend our armed forces, | 0:56:37 | 0:56:42 | |
we look at - how could this be used by an adversary? | 0:56:42 | 0:56:44 | |
Three, two, one. | 0:56:46 | 0:56:49 | |
That's stopped the sampling now. | 0:56:49 | 0:56:52 | |
After 19 minutes, | 0:56:53 | 0:56:55 | |
more than 30% of the aerosolized Ebola still remains viable. | 0:56:55 | 0:57:01 | |
Unfortunately, the experiment proves it could be | 0:57:01 | 0:57:04 | |
effective as a potential weapon. | 0:57:04 | 0:57:07 | |
Today, it's Ebola. It may well be another virus tomorrow. | 0:57:07 | 0:57:11 | |
So, there's always going to be emerging diseases coming through. | 0:57:11 | 0:57:14 | |
Primarily, they are going to be viruses. | 0:57:14 | 0:57:16 | |
Which is why we've got this capability here to be able | 0:57:16 | 0:57:19 | |
to do that sort of work. | 0:57:19 | 0:57:21 | |
That's the work that we study | 0:57:21 | 0:57:23 | |
and I would hope the British people would recognise that's a good | 0:57:23 | 0:57:26 | |
thing to do, as we think about their safety and the safety of our | 0:57:26 | 0:57:29 | |
armed forces, given that these threats are out there in the world. | 0:57:29 | 0:57:33 | |
Looking forwards and responding to new threats is ultimately | 0:57:36 | 0:57:40 | |
what Porton Down's scientists have done for 100 years. | 0:57:40 | 0:57:43 | |
Over that time, they have developed weapons of mass destruction... | 0:57:44 | 0:57:48 | |
A pinhead drop on your skin would be enough to kill you. | 0:57:49 | 0:57:53 | |
..using controversial methods... | 0:57:53 | 0:57:56 | |
Close down Porton Down. | 0:57:56 | 0:57:58 | |
..and at times, they have hidden the truth. | 0:57:58 | 0:58:02 | |
The only thought that the government had was - let's hush it up. | 0:58:02 | 0:58:05 | |
Porton Down is a place of contradictions. | 0:58:07 | 0:58:10 | |
It's a secret institution who are trying to be more open. | 0:58:10 | 0:58:14 | |
They were born in war, | 0:58:14 | 0:58:15 | |
but they see their primary purpose now as defensive. | 0:58:15 | 0:58:18 | |
They have had their dark moments, | 0:58:18 | 0:58:21 | |
but they have also saved a lot of lives. | 0:58:21 | 0:58:23 | |
And I have no doubt that the UK would be a much more | 0:58:23 | 0:58:27 | |
vulnerable place without them. | 0:58:27 | 0:58:29 |