Now Salmond is urged to give up his TV chat show
ALEX Salmond was branded a ‘useful idiot’ yesterday as he came under pressure to quit a Kremlin-funded TV channel.
The former first minister has been urged to condemn Vladimir Putin on his Russia Today (RT) chat show over the Salisbury nerve agent attack.
It came as Russia threatened to expel all British media if its TV channel is shut down in the UK.
At the weekend, Mr Salmond claimed it was a ‘remarkable extension’ to criticise him and others for appearing on RT as the station was not responsible for the poisoning.
Last night he said he would set out his views on the issue on tomorrow’s Alex Salmond Show.
Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton said: ‘Alex Salmond needs to end his relationship with RT. In the space of a week we’ve seen Putin fan anti-Semitism by blaming US election meddling on the Russian Jewish community and the nerve agent used in a murder plot on British soil traced back to Russian labs.
‘If even a prime minister who has faced criticism in recent months over members of her party “taking the ruble” can call this out, why can’t our former first minister?’
He added: ‘Alex Salmond has claimed he has editorial control of his show. If that is true he should condemn these developments. Mr Salmond has played the useful idiot in RT’s veneer of respectability for long enough.’
Mr Salmond said: ‘I shall be addressing the developing crisis on Thursday so watch the show to find out what I think.’ At the weekend, he told LBC radio listeners he could ‘assure’ them RT was ‘not responsible for the poisoning in Salisbury’.
On calls for him to quit the channel, he said: ‘To make the connection by extension, that someone shouldn’t appear on a programme independently produced and broadcast on a station licensed by Ofcom, and therefore which cannot be a propaganda channel, seems a remarkable extension.’
When he launched his show in November, Mr Salmond was accused of hypocrisy for signing up to RT after lashing out at other news channels and newspapers for ‘bias’.
Yesterday media regulator Ofcom said RT, a 24-hour news network, could lose its UK licence if the Government rules Russia was behind the poisoning.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said: ‘Not a single British media outlet will work in our country if they shut down Russia Today.’
RT said in a statement: ‘Our broadcasting has in no way changed this week and continues to adhere to all standards.’