The Scotsman

Pressure grows on Salmond to ditch show on Russian television station

- Scott Macnab

Alex Salmond is facing fresh pressure to quit his controvers­ial current affairs show on Russia Today (RT) after SNP Westminste­r leader Ian Blackford said people should not appear on the channel.

The former First Minister is also facing calls to apologise for “seeking to cast doubt” on the involvemen­t of the Russian state in the Salisbury poisonings. Mr Salmond declined to criticise the Russian state on his show in March at the time of the attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.

The EX-SNP leader has quit the party while he fights claims that he sexually harassed two women

while First Minister. The developmen­ts will also bring pressure on Tasmina Ahmed Sheikh, the former SNP MP, to quit her role producing the Alex Salmond Show. She is currently on the SNP’S national executive committee.

Mr Blackford said yesterday: “I think RT is a vehicle of the Russian state, what we know now today it is clear the Russian state was demonstrab­ly implicated in the attack on the Skripals.”

Mr Blackford said he would not encourage anyone to go on the channel and added: “I don’t believe that people should broadcast on RT.”

However, he refused to condemn Mr Salmond’s crowdfundi­ng appeal to pay for legal costs over allegation­s of groping. SNP MPS including Western Isles MP Angus Macneil donated to the crowdfunde­r, which raised more than double its target of £50,000 within a matter of hours.

When asked if opening a crowdfunde­r was, as women’s rights charities have said, intimidati­ng to his accusers, Mr Blackford praised the legacy of the former Gordon MP.

He added: “I think people should think very carefully if they are going to support such a thing, but I am not going to go beyond that.”

Pushed on whether Mr Salmond should donate the funds to sexual violence charities, Mr Blackford would not give a view, although he said he himself supported such charities in his constituen­cy.

“What Alex does with that money is up to him,” he said.

Liberal Democrat MSP Alex Cole Hamilton said yesterday: “Alex Salmond sought to cast doubt on the role of the Russian government in a heinous poison attack on British soil. He did so while a message ran along the bottom of the RT screen discrediti­ng the investigat­ion. Given the overwhelmi­ng evidence suggesting that this attack was conducted by Russian intelligen­ce, it is abhorrent that the former First Minister is still taking part in a weekly show on Putin’s propaganda channel. End this Trump-like apologism for Putin’s Russia.

“His next broadcast should include an apology to the Skripal family or even better, his resignatio­n from Russia Today.

“He has embarrasse­d Scotland for long enough.”

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