Putin's Patsy
Alex Salmond has become a national embarrassment to Scotland and the SNP, the party he used to lead with distinction.
But the former First Minister of Scotland completely misses the point over his association with the Kremlin controlled TV channel Russia Today.
Salmond's presence on the channel lends credibility to what most reasonable people regard as propaganda channel - the fact that he has 'editorial control' over his 30 minutes of fame every week is neither here nor there.
If you ask me, Salmond is simply a patsy for Putin whose aim is to undermine democracy and democratic institutions in the West.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/salmond-claims-rt-show-is-not-propaganda-gm9l7kl6x?shareToken=9e3d59c7cfb534b161682e23e7d38329
RT doesn’t tell me what to say, insists Salmond
By Hamish Macdonell - The Times
Alex Salmond used his RT show to question Kremlin complicity in the Salisbury attack
Alex Salmond has been strongly criticised after using his show on a state-sponsored Russian television station to question the Kremlin’s involvement in the Salisbury poisoning.
On his RT – Russia Today — chat show, the former first minister called on the UK government to produce evidence showing the Russians were responsible for the nerve agent attack.
He interviewed two people who cast doubt on Russia’s involvement and then insisted that RT was not a propaganda mouthpiece for the Kremlin.
One of the guests who questioned Russian culpability was Annie Machon, a former MI5 agent who left the service 21 years ago to expose secrets within it and who has since sympathised with conspiracy theories on 9/11 and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
This week Jeremy Corbyn, the UK Labour leader, was barracked by Conservative MPs as he asked Theresa May how she had responded to requests from the Russian government for a sample of the nerve agent used in the attack so it could run its own tests.
On The Alex Salmond Show, Mr Salmond backed Mr Corbyn’s approach. He said: “To succeed, the evidence has to be overwhelming and the case cast iron, as the leader of the opposition correctly pointed out to the PM. He didn’t get much support for making that point in the House of Commons but that doesn’t make him wrong.”
He added: “Pursuing the case internationally is essential and you’re unlikely to succeed at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons or at the UN without the production of such conclusive evidence. When the UK government produces their evidence then the Russian government will have no alternative but to answer.” Mr Salmond also defended RT, saying he had total editorial control of his show and no one had ever told him what to say or what to broadcast.
Alex Cole-Hamilton, a Liberal Democrat MSP, said that “taking Putin’s rouble” should bar Mr Salmond from ever returning to Scottish politics.
He added: “Nicola Sturgeon has rightly warned that Russia’s actions cannot be tolerated. With Alex Salmond defending his relationship with this Kremlin mouthpiece, will she now rule out giving Alex Salmond the opportunity to return to frontline politics? This is within the first minister’s power.”
Murdo Fraser, for the Scottish Conservatives, said: “It’s a monumental fall from grace from someone who used to be regarded as a serious individual. It’s clear Nicola Sturgeon is embarrassed by his actions — it’s time she had the guts to say so.”
Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, raised the issue at first minister’s questions, inviting Ms Sturgeon to condemn RT. The first minister said she supported Mrs May’s actions against Russia and said this was too important to be reduced to political point scoring.
A spokesman for Ms Sturgeon said later that Mr Cole-Hamilton’s demand for Mr Salmond to be barred from a return to politics appeared to be “neither liberal nor very democratic”.
Ms Sturgeon would not call on Mr Salmond to end his link with RT nor demand he stop defending the Kremlin, he said, adding: “Alex speaks for himself. This is a very serious matter. I don’t think Alex’s chat show is the most important item on the agenda.”
Alex Salmond's profitable association with the Kremlin controlled TV channel Russia Today continues to harm the former First Minister and, inevitably, the SNP as well.
'Wee Eck' apparently continues to believe that he knows best and that he is bigger than the party he once led.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16083928.TV_watchdog_moves_closer_to_banning_Kremlin_channel_hosting_Salmond_show/
TV watchdog moves closer to banning Kremlin channel hosting Alex Salmond show
By David Leask - The Herald
The Alex Salmond Show
Britain's broadcasting watchdog has signalled it may move against the Kremlin TV station showing the Alex Salmond Show.
Ofcom has announced it will speed up a probe in to whether RT, the former Russia Today, is"fit and proper".
The regulator added that any finding that the Russian state was most likely behind the poisonings in Salisbury of a former spy and his daughter would be "relevant" to this investigation.
Its remarks come as pressure mounted on an increasingly isolated Mr Salmond as SNPfigures lined up to criticise RT and other outlets deemed by Nato, the EU and the UK to be propaganda and misinformation vehicles.
READ MORE: Alex Salmond branded Putin's "useful idiot" as political pressure piles on ex-FM to quit RT show
A Liberal Democrat MSP called Mr Salmond a "useful idiot" - a term for those who unwittingly supported the Soviet regime - and urged him to quit RT.
Ofcom said: "As the independent UK broadcasting regulator, Ofcom has an ongoing duty to be satisfied that broadcast licensees remain fit and proper to hold their licences.
"We have today written to ANO TV Novosti, holder of RT’s UK broadcast licences, which is financed from the budget of the Russian Federation.
"This letter explained that, should the UK investigating authorities determine that there was an unlawful use of force by the Russian State against the UK, we would consider this relevant to our ongoing duty to be satisfied that RT is fit and proper.
"The letter to RT said that we would carry out our independent fit and proper assessment on an expedited basis, and we would write to RT again shortly setting out details of our process."
RT denied anything had happened since the Salisbury poisonings to justify a review of its licencing.
In a statement issued through a PR agency, it said: “We disagree with the position taken by Ofcom; our broadcasting has in no way changed this week, from any other week and continues to adhere to all standards. "By linking RT to unrelated matters, Ofcom is conflating its role as a broadcasting regulator with matters of state. RT remains a valuable voice in the UK news landscape, covering vital yet neglected stories and voices, including those of the many MPs and other UK public figures who have been shut out of public discourse by the mainstream media."
There has been some political support for an outright ban on RT and its sister organisation, Sputnik. Some Kremlin-watchers, however, have cautioned against such a move amid fears of a tit-for-tat retaliation against UK free press or broadcasters in Russia.
BACKGROUND: Why the mainstream SNP is worried about Russian propaganda
Ben Nimmo, a fellow with the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, responded to speculation of an RT ban said: "Anyone want to bet whether the Russian government would welcome the excuse to silence the BBC Russian service just before the elections this weekend?"
Last week the SNP renewed its attacks on RT but its MP Martin Docherty cautioned against taking the channel off the air, saying: "Simply, banning RT would have little effect on its already small viewership, and would lead to the potential for tit-for-tat actions against organisations like Radio Liberty or the BBC Russian service, which provide vital services to people living under Putin’s authoritarian regime."
SNP leaders have recently avoided targetting Mr Salmond for personal criticism, despite an unprecedented initial reaction to his deal with RT. Alyn Smith MEP, in a highly unusual on-the-record comment, responded to news of the Alex Salmond Show by saying "What the f**k was he thinking?"
Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton, on Tuesday said: “Alex Salmond needs to end his relationship with Russia Today.
“In the space of a week we’ve seen Vladimir 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.”
READ MORE: Alex Salmond branded Putin's "useful idiot" as political pressure piles on ex-FM to quit RT show
Mr Cole-Hamilton said that the former SNP leader had claimed editorial control of his show, which meant he should condemn the latest developments.
He added: “Salmond has played the useful [and well paid] idiot in RT’s veneer of respectability for long enough.”
Harold Elletson, a Russia expert and former Conservative MP, said Mr Salmond “wouldn’t have a leg to stand on” if he remained at RT.
He told The Times that the channel was “a propaganda instrument of the Russian state, at a time when Russia was engaged in a very aggressive information campaign, if not an information war, against the West. That puts Salmond in an extremely difficult position.”
He added: “Sometimes the truth is more important than the paycheck.”
The Herald has sought a response from Mr Salmond.
David Leask posted the following unhinged comment from Sidney Burnett which was posted on The Herald's web site.
Now Sidney needs help, if you ask me, but there is a serious point to all this which is that a senior Scottish politician is lending credibility to this ghastly Kremlin TV channel.
Iain MacWhirter rides to Alex Salmond's rescue in this piece for The Herald with the assertion that the former First Minister is no 'puppet' of President Putin.
Well, yes, but no one ever claimed that Wee Eck was taking orders or instructions directly from the Kremlin.
The point is that Salmond is more of a 'patsy' than a puppet; his value lies in giving credibility to a propaganda TV channel and rogue Mafia-state where journalists and critics are regularly harassed, murdered even, by the forces of the state.
The fate of Alexander Litvinenko is a good example.
Most of Russia Today's output has little to do with events in Russia itself since the channel is preoccupied with attacking the west, notwithstanding Putin's attempts to cosy up to Donald Trump.
So giving Alex Salmond editorial control of a half hour chat show is a small price to pay for his propaganda value to the wider RT network and its worldwide output.
Which is why I'm happy to agree that while Alex is no puppet of Putin - he definitely fits the bill of a 'Putin Patsy'.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15661144.Iain_Macwhirter__Salmond___s_decision_is_foolish__but_that_does_not_make_him_a_Putin_puppet/
Iain Macwhirter: Salmond’s decision is foolish, but that does not make him a Putin puppet
Politics Home has an interesting analysis of the Sturgeon vs Salmond 'stushie' before concluding that it's a battle the First Minister has to win.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/snp/alex salmond/news/politicshome/90501/analysis-why-nicola-sturgeon?
ANALYSIS: Why Nicola Sturgeon cutting Alex Salmond loose is a pretty big deal
By Kevin Schofield - PoliticsHome
Improbable as it may seem to modern-day Westminster-watchers, in 2004 the SNP were in a right old state.
Kremlin Mouthpiece (10/11/17)
Alex Salmond hits a new low with the news that Scotland's former First Minister is to host a 'chat show' on the Kremlin-backed TV channel Russia Today.
Russia's interference in America's presidential election has managed to destabilise the west and the EU through the election of the volatile narcissist Donald Trump, and the same thing may have happened over the Brexit vote as well.
Is Wee Eck's ego completely out of control - is Alex Salmond 'bigger' than his party, the SNP?
I think we're about to find out.
'Kukly' was a highly popular Russian TV programme, allegedly inspired by Spitting Image, which poked fun at the country's political establishment, like all good satire does, but the host station (NTV) was forced to close down in 2002 after pressure from President Putin and the Kremlin
David Aaronovitch uses his regular column in The Times to explain why this is not funny and why Russia's subversion really matters in western democracies.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/russia-is-laughing-at-subversion-of-the-west-nr360g32r
Russia is laughing at the subversion of the West
I enjoyed this article by Darren McGarvey in The Scotsman is which the writer and activist recounts his treatment on Twitter after making some mild criticism of Alex Salmond's decision to hitch his wagon to the Kremlin controlled TV channel, Russia Today.
Now this reminded me of my days in the Labour Party 20 years ago when any criticism of the party leadership was met with scowls, frowns and even accusations of disloyalty on the basis that:
a) We're in the middle of an election campaign
b) We're just a few months away from an important election campaign
c) We've just fought an important election campaign - give folks a chance
In other words, the message was 'stop rocking the bloody boat' - either you're with us or against us, so shut your gob!
I suspect Twitter makes things far worse these days because the anonymous 'avatars' that most people hide behind tend to make them even more aggressive and belligerent than normal.
Even so, I hope Darren doesn't shut his gob since he has lots of interesting things to say.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/darren-mcgarvey-make-a-point-about-alex-salmond-and-the-snp-at-your-peril-1-4612349
Darren McGarvey: Make a point about Alex Salmond and the SNP at your peril
Alex Salmond has been strongly criticised after using his show on a state-sponsored Russian television station to question the Kremlin’s involvement in the Salisbury poisoning.
On his RT – Russia Today — chat show, the former first minister called on the UK government to produce evidence showing the Russians were responsible for the nerve agent attack.
He interviewed two people who cast doubt on Russia’s involvement and then insisted that RT was not a propaganda mouthpiece for the Kremlin.
One of the guests who questioned Russian culpability was Annie Machon, a former MI5 agent who left the service 21 years ago to expose secrets within it and who has since sympathised with conspiracy theories on 9/11 and the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
This week Jeremy Corbyn, the UK Labour leader, was barracked by Conservative MPs as he asked Theresa May how she had responded to requests from the Russian government for a sample of the nerve agent used in the attack so it could run its own tests.
On The Alex Salmond Show, Mr Salmond backed Mr Corbyn’s approach. He said: “To succeed, the evidence has to be overwhelming and the case cast iron, as the leader of the opposition correctly pointed out to the PM. He didn’t get much support for making that point in the House of Commons but that doesn’t make him wrong.”
He added: “Pursuing the case internationally is essential and you’re unlikely to succeed at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons or at the UN without the production of such conclusive evidence. When the UK government produces their evidence then the Russian government will have no alternative but to answer.” Mr Salmond also defended RT, saying he had total editorial control of his show and no one had ever told him what to say or what to broadcast.
Alex Cole-Hamilton, a Liberal Democrat MSP, said that “taking Putin’s rouble” should bar Mr Salmond from ever returning to Scottish politics.
He added: “Nicola Sturgeon has rightly warned that Russia’s actions cannot be tolerated. With Alex Salmond defending his relationship with this Kremlin mouthpiece, will she now rule out giving Alex Salmond the opportunity to return to frontline politics? This is within the first minister’s power.”
Murdo Fraser, for the Scottish Conservatives, said: “It’s a monumental fall from grace from someone who used to be regarded as a serious individual. It’s clear Nicola Sturgeon is embarrassed by his actions — it’s time she had the guts to say so.”
Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, raised the issue at first minister’s questions, inviting Ms Sturgeon to condemn RT. The first minister said she supported Mrs May’s actions against Russia and said this was too important to be reduced to political point scoring.
A spokesman for Ms Sturgeon said later that Mr Cole-Hamilton’s demand for Mr Salmond to be barred from a return to politics appeared to be “neither liberal nor very democratic”.
Ms Sturgeon would not call on Mr Salmond to end his link with RT nor demand he stop defending the Kremlin, he said, adding: “Alex speaks for himself. This is a very serious matter. I don’t think Alex’s chat show is the most important item on the agenda.”
Kremlin Mouthpiece (14/03/18)
Alex Salmond's profitable association with the Kremlin controlled TV channel Russia Today continues to harm the former First Minister and, inevitably, the SNP as well.
'Wee Eck' apparently continues to believe that he knows best and that he is bigger than the party he once led.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16083928.TV_watchdog_moves_closer_to_banning_Kremlin_channel_hosting_Salmond_show/
TV watchdog moves closer to banning Kremlin channel hosting Alex Salmond show
By David Leask - The Herald
The Alex Salmond Show
Britain's broadcasting watchdog has signalled it may move against the Kremlin TV station showing the Alex Salmond Show.
Ofcom has announced it will speed up a probe in to whether RT, the former Russia Today, is"fit and proper".
The regulator added that any finding that the Russian state was most likely behind the poisonings in Salisbury of a former spy and his daughter would be "relevant" to this investigation.
Its remarks come as pressure mounted on an increasingly isolated Mr Salmond as SNPfigures lined up to criticise RT and other outlets deemed by Nato, the EU and the UK to be propaganda and misinformation vehicles.
READ MORE: Alex Salmond branded Putin's "useful idiot" as political pressure piles on ex-FM to quit RT show
A Liberal Democrat MSP called Mr Salmond a "useful idiot" - a term for those who unwittingly supported the Soviet regime - and urged him to quit RT.
Ofcom said: "As the independent UK broadcasting regulator, Ofcom has an ongoing duty to be satisfied that broadcast licensees remain fit and proper to hold their licences.
"We have today written to ANO TV Novosti, holder of RT’s UK broadcast licences, which is financed from the budget of the Russian Federation.
"This letter explained that, should the UK investigating authorities determine that there was an unlawful use of force by the Russian State against the UK, we would consider this relevant to our ongoing duty to be satisfied that RT is fit and proper.
"The letter to RT said that we would carry out our independent fit and proper assessment on an expedited basis, and we would write to RT again shortly setting out details of our process."
RT denied anything had happened since the Salisbury poisonings to justify a review of its licencing.
In a statement issued through a PR agency, it said: “We disagree with the position taken by Ofcom; our broadcasting has in no way changed this week, from any other week and continues to adhere to all standards. "By linking RT to unrelated matters, Ofcom is conflating its role as a broadcasting regulator with matters of state. RT remains a valuable voice in the UK news landscape, covering vital yet neglected stories and voices, including those of the many MPs and other UK public figures who have been shut out of public discourse by the mainstream media."
There has been some political support for an outright ban on RT and its sister organisation, Sputnik. Some Kremlin-watchers, however, have cautioned against such a move amid fears of a tit-for-tat retaliation against UK free press or broadcasters in Russia.
BACKGROUND: Why the mainstream SNP is worried about Russian propaganda
Ben Nimmo, a fellow with the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, responded to speculation of an RT ban said: "Anyone want to bet whether the Russian government would welcome the excuse to silence the BBC Russian service just before the elections this weekend?"
Last week the SNP renewed its attacks on RT but its MP Martin Docherty cautioned against taking the channel off the air, saying: "Simply, banning RT would have little effect on its already small viewership, and would lead to the potential for tit-for-tat actions against organisations like Radio Liberty or the BBC Russian service, which provide vital services to people living under Putin’s authoritarian regime."
SNP leaders have recently avoided targetting Mr Salmond for personal criticism, despite an unprecedented initial reaction to his deal with RT. Alyn Smith MEP, in a highly unusual on-the-record comment, responded to news of the Alex Salmond Show by saying "What the f**k was he thinking?"
Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton, on Tuesday said: “Alex Salmond needs to end his relationship with Russia Today.
“In the space of a week we’ve seen Vladimir 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.”
READ MORE: Alex Salmond branded Putin's "useful idiot" as political pressure piles on ex-FM to quit RT show
Mr Cole-Hamilton said that the former SNP leader had claimed editorial control of his show, which meant he should condemn the latest developments.
He added: “Salmond has played the useful [and well paid] idiot in RT’s veneer of respectability for long enough.”
Harold Elletson, a Russia expert and former Conservative MP, said Mr Salmond “wouldn’t have a leg to stand on” if he remained at RT.
He told The Times that the channel was “a propaganda instrument of the Russian state, at a time when Russia was engaged in a very aggressive information campaign, if not an information war, against the West. That puts Salmond in an extremely difficult position.”
He added: “Sometimes the truth is more important than the paycheck.”
The Herald has sought a response from Mr Salmond.
Kremlin TV (09/03/18)
David Leask posted the following unhinged comment from Sidney Burnett which was posted on The Herald's web site.
Now Sidney needs help, if you ask me, but there is a serious point to all this which is that a senior Scottish politician is lending credibility to this ghastly Kremlin TV channel.
Putin's Patsy vs Putin's Puppet (17/11/17)
Iain MacWhirter rides to Alex Salmond's rescue in this piece for The Herald with the assertion that the former First Minister is no 'puppet' of President Putin.
Well, yes, but no one ever claimed that Wee Eck was taking orders or instructions directly from the Kremlin.
The point is that Salmond is more of a 'patsy' than a puppet; his value lies in giving credibility to a propaganda TV channel and rogue Mafia-state where journalists and critics are regularly harassed, murdered even, by the forces of the state.
The fate of Alexander Litvinenko is a good example.
Most of Russia Today's output has little to do with events in Russia itself since the channel is preoccupied with attacking the west, notwithstanding Putin's attempts to cosy up to Donald Trump.
So giving Alex Salmond editorial control of a half hour chat show is a small price to pay for his propaganda value to the wider RT network and its worldwide output.
Which is why I'm happy to agree that while Alex is no puppet of Putin - he definitely fits the bill of a 'Putin Patsy'.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15661144.Iain_Macwhirter__Salmond___s_decision_is_foolish__but_that_does_not_make_him_a_Putin_puppet/
Iain Macwhirter: Salmond’s decision is foolish, but that does not make him a Putin puppet
BY Iain Macwhirter - The Herald
Russian President Vladimir Putin
SHE knows what you’re up to Vladimir, so you’d better clean up your campaign of media disinformation double quick. I’m sure the Russian President is shaking in his jodhpurs at Theresa May’s warning in her Guild Hall speech, which sounded a bit like a head teacher giving S4 a lecture on cheating in exams.
There’s no evidence that the Fancy Bears or other Russian-based hackers have been at work in UK elections, as they have apparently in the US, spreading fake news and Trump memes. But the Prime Minister said that Mr Putin is “seeking to weaponise information” directed at Britain, “by deploying its state-run media organisations”. She presumably means the Edinburgh-based Sputnik news agency and Russia Today, the English-language TV news channel, which in 2014 had around 100,000 UK viewers, and which is about to host a programme presented by our own Alex Salmond.
The implication is that Scotland is being used as an ideological beach head in the Kremlin’s information war. Scottish politicians from Ruth Davidson to Patrick Harvie have been hastily distancing themselves from RT and Sputnik, for which they have given interviews in the past. They don’t want to be collateral damage. But the former First Minister is made of sterner stuff and insists he is not peddling a Kremlin line. So where does Russia Today come from?
Russian President Vladimir Putin
SHE knows what you’re up to Vladimir, so you’d better clean up your campaign of media disinformation double quick. I’m sure the Russian President is shaking in his jodhpurs at Theresa May’s warning in her Guild Hall speech, which sounded a bit like a head teacher giving S4 a lecture on cheating in exams.
There’s no evidence that the Fancy Bears or other Russian-based hackers have been at work in UK elections, as they have apparently in the US, spreading fake news and Trump memes. But the Prime Minister said that Mr Putin is “seeking to weaponise information” directed at Britain, “by deploying its state-run media organisations”. She presumably means the Edinburgh-based Sputnik news agency and Russia Today, the English-language TV news channel, which in 2014 had around 100,000 UK viewers, and which is about to host a programme presented by our own Alex Salmond.
The implication is that Scotland is being used as an ideological beach head in the Kremlin’s information war. Scottish politicians from Ruth Davidson to Patrick Harvie have been hastily distancing themselves from RT and Sputnik, for which they have given interviews in the past. They don’t want to be collateral damage. But the former First Minister is made of sterner stuff and insists he is not peddling a Kremlin line. So where does Russia Today come from?
Sturgeon vs Salmond 'Stushie" (15/11/17)
Here's the official statement from Scotland's First Minister responding to the news that Alex Salmond had secured a lucrative contract to present a chat show on Kremlin controlled Russia TV.
Sturgeon vs Salmond 'Stushie' (11/11/17)
Politics Home has an interesting analysis of the Sturgeon vs Salmond 'stushie' before concluding that it's a battle the First Minister has to win.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/snp/alex salmond/news/politicshome/90501/analysis-why-nicola-sturgeon?
ANALYSIS: Why Nicola Sturgeon cutting Alex Salmond loose is a pretty big deal
By Kevin Schofield - PoliticsHome
Improbable as it may seem to modern-day Westminster-watchers, in 2004 the SNP were in a right old state.
Nicola Sturgeon's patience has finally snapped with Alex Salmond - Credit: PA Images
John Swinney had been jettisoned as party leader following a horrific set of European election results, plunging the party into chaos.
The resulting leadership contest appeared to be a shootout between rising star Nicola Sturgeon and the relative veterans, Roseanna Cunningham and Mike Russell.
Nicola Sturgeon slaps down Alex Salmond over Russia Today chat show
Alex Salmond criticised over chat show on Kremlin-funded Russia Today
Alex Salmond defends joke about sex with female politicians as ‘harmless innuendo’
Alex Salmond loses seat on awful night for the SNP
Cunningham seemed on course for victory - a prospect which did not meet with the approval of Alex Salmond, who had stood down as leader in 2000 and wanted Sturgeon to be the SNP's new head honcho.
A secret deal was then done between Salmond and Sturgeon. She would agree to step aside in the contest for leader and instead run on a joint ticket with her mentor. If party members agreed to give Salmond another crack at the top job, she would be his deputy.
Salmond won and three years later became Scotland's First Minister, ushering in a period of previously unimaginable success for the Nationalists.
In 2011, the party won an overall majority at the Scottish Parliament, a result which Holyrood's proportionate voting system was supposed to make impossible.
Even defeat in the 2014 independent referendum failed to derail the SNP juggernaut. Salmond stepped down, but the baton was passed to his chosen successor Sturgeon, who was more than ready to assume the role after her 10-year apprenticeship at his right hand side.
Another Nationalist landslide, this time at the 2015 general election, followed. Salmond was one of 56 SNP MPs elected and quickly set about making his presence felt. Opportunities to push the cause for a speedy second independence referendum were rarely passed up, regardless of whether or not that strategy accorded with the views of Sturgeon and her team.
When Sturgeon finally did reveal her hand in March, demanding that indyref2 be held by spring 2019 at the latest, "sources" told Sky News that she had been pushed into doing so by Salmond and her supporters. Salmond vehemently denied the claims, but the impression remained that he was attempting to be a backseat driver at a critical time in Sturgeon's leadership.
After losing his seat at the June election, Salmond was unlikely to retreat into the background. But few expected him to chase the limelight in the way he has. His one man show at the Edinburgh Fringe, though well-attended, is memorable only for an off-colour 'joke' in which he appeared to suggest he had had sex with Theresa May, Ruth Davidson ... and Sturgeon.
Excruciatingly for the First Minister, she was forced to insist that her predecessor was "not sexist", although she did say that his attempt at humour "belonged more in the Benny Hill era than in the modern era".
Her carefully-chosen words showed that Sturgeon knew that to most grassroots Nationalists, Samond remained the man who had delivered unimaginable success and brought them to within touching distance of independence. It meant she had to treat Salmond like an embarrassing uncle at a family wedding - barely tolerated but never publicly criticised.
That all changed today, however, when her patience finally snapped. The trigger was last night's announcement that Salmond is to host a weekly chat show on the Kremlin-funded TV channel Russia Today. Derided as a propaganda outlet for the Putin regime, politicians have long been criticised for appearing on it. Salmond would have known - and most likely secretly-hoped - that the announcement would have led to a flood of criticism. "Dangerously undignified", one SNP MP told PoliticsHome, while Nationalist MEP Alyn Smyth was more blunt: "What the f*** is he thinking?"
In a statement issued this morning, Sturgeon was cautious in her use of language, but the message was clear: Salmond had run out of road.
"I am sure Alex’s show will make interesting viewing – however, his choice of channel would not have been my choice," she said. "Of course, Alex is not currently an elected politician and is free to do as he wishes – but had I been asked, I would have advised against RT and suggested he seek a different channel to air what I am sure will be an entertaining show. Neither myself nor the SNP will shy away from criticising Russian policy when we believe it is merited."
This is significant because it marks the beginning of the end of a 13-year partnership, and a decisive - some might say long-overdue - break with the Salmond era.
A quick glance at social media shows there are still many, many SNP supporters willing to defend Salmond to the death, convinced that the RT row is further evidence of a plot by the "Yoon media" to do in their hero.
That means this is a high-stakes gamble for a party leader still trying to assuage the grassroots' desire for a second referendum while placating a wider electorate thoroughly sick of constitutional politics.
It was a call that Sturgeon had to make. And it is one that she needs to pay off.
John Swinney had been jettisoned as party leader following a horrific set of European election results, plunging the party into chaos.
The resulting leadership contest appeared to be a shootout between rising star Nicola Sturgeon and the relative veterans, Roseanna Cunningham and Mike Russell.
Nicola Sturgeon slaps down Alex Salmond over Russia Today chat show
Alex Salmond criticised over chat show on Kremlin-funded Russia Today
Alex Salmond defends joke about sex with female politicians as ‘harmless innuendo’
Alex Salmond loses seat on awful night for the SNP
Cunningham seemed on course for victory - a prospect which did not meet with the approval of Alex Salmond, who had stood down as leader in 2000 and wanted Sturgeon to be the SNP's new head honcho.
A secret deal was then done between Salmond and Sturgeon. She would agree to step aside in the contest for leader and instead run on a joint ticket with her mentor. If party members agreed to give Salmond another crack at the top job, she would be his deputy.
Salmond won and three years later became Scotland's First Minister, ushering in a period of previously unimaginable success for the Nationalists.
In 2011, the party won an overall majority at the Scottish Parliament, a result which Holyrood's proportionate voting system was supposed to make impossible.
Even defeat in the 2014 independent referendum failed to derail the SNP juggernaut. Salmond stepped down, but the baton was passed to his chosen successor Sturgeon, who was more than ready to assume the role after her 10-year apprenticeship at his right hand side.
Another Nationalist landslide, this time at the 2015 general election, followed. Salmond was one of 56 SNP MPs elected and quickly set about making his presence felt. Opportunities to push the cause for a speedy second independence referendum were rarely passed up, regardless of whether or not that strategy accorded with the views of Sturgeon and her team.
When Sturgeon finally did reveal her hand in March, demanding that indyref2 be held by spring 2019 at the latest, "sources" told Sky News that she had been pushed into doing so by Salmond and her supporters. Salmond vehemently denied the claims, but the impression remained that he was attempting to be a backseat driver at a critical time in Sturgeon's leadership.
After losing his seat at the June election, Salmond was unlikely to retreat into the background. But few expected him to chase the limelight in the way he has. His one man show at the Edinburgh Fringe, though well-attended, is memorable only for an off-colour 'joke' in which he appeared to suggest he had had sex with Theresa May, Ruth Davidson ... and Sturgeon.
Excruciatingly for the First Minister, she was forced to insist that her predecessor was "not sexist", although she did say that his attempt at humour "belonged more in the Benny Hill era than in the modern era".
Her carefully-chosen words showed that Sturgeon knew that to most grassroots Nationalists, Samond remained the man who had delivered unimaginable success and brought them to within touching distance of independence. It meant she had to treat Salmond like an embarrassing uncle at a family wedding - barely tolerated but never publicly criticised.
That all changed today, however, when her patience finally snapped. The trigger was last night's announcement that Salmond is to host a weekly chat show on the Kremlin-funded TV channel Russia Today. Derided as a propaganda outlet for the Putin regime, politicians have long been criticised for appearing on it. Salmond would have known - and most likely secretly-hoped - that the announcement would have led to a flood of criticism. "Dangerously undignified", one SNP MP told PoliticsHome, while Nationalist MEP Alyn Smyth was more blunt: "What the f*** is he thinking?"
In a statement issued this morning, Sturgeon was cautious in her use of language, but the message was clear: Salmond had run out of road.
"I am sure Alex’s show will make interesting viewing – however, his choice of channel would not have been my choice," she said. "Of course, Alex is not currently an elected politician and is free to do as he wishes – but had I been asked, I would have advised against RT and suggested he seek a different channel to air what I am sure will be an entertaining show. Neither myself nor the SNP will shy away from criticising Russian policy when we believe it is merited."
This is significant because it marks the beginning of the end of a 13-year partnership, and a decisive - some might say long-overdue - break with the Salmond era.
A quick glance at social media shows there are still many, many SNP supporters willing to defend Salmond to the death, convinced that the RT row is further evidence of a plot by the "Yoon media" to do in their hero.
That means this is a high-stakes gamble for a party leader still trying to assuage the grassroots' desire for a second referendum while placating a wider electorate thoroughly sick of constitutional politics.
It was a call that Sturgeon had to make. And it is one that she needs to pay off.
Kremlin Mouthpiece (10/11/17)
Alex Salmond hits a new low with the news that Scotland's former First Minister is to host a 'chat show' on the Kremlin-backed TV channel Russia Today.
Russia's interference in America's presidential election has managed to destabilise the west and the EU through the election of the volatile narcissist Donald Trump, and the same thing may have happened over the Brexit vote as well.
Is Wee Eck's ego completely out of control - is Alex Salmond 'bigger' than his party, the SNP?
I think we're about to find out.
Russian Comedy Act (14/10/17)
'Kukly' was a highly popular Russian TV programme, allegedly inspired by Spitting Image, which poked fun at the country's political establishment, like all good satire does, but the host station (NTV) was forced to close down in 2002 after pressure from President Putin and the Kremlin
David Aaronovitch uses his regular column in The Times to explain why this is not funny and why Russia's subversion really matters in western democracies.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/russia-is-laughing-at-subversion-of-the-west-nr360g32r
Russia is laughing at the subversion of the West
By David Aaronovitch - The Times
Actor Keith Allen is bringing satire to the Putin-backed RT channel but he should ask himself why it really wants him
I must have met Reuben Falber around the time that he last took money from the Soviets. From 1958 to 1978, every few months, the rather unassuming man with the thick spectacles who was the assistant general secretary of the British Communist Party would brush up against someone from the Russian embassy outside Barons Court Tube station or on Hampstead Heath, and come away heavier to the tune of one envelope full of used banknotes. Only three people in the Communist Party knew about it. When the news came out after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was some consternation. My dad, who had worked as a full-time party official for 20 years, was genuinely astonished.
You wouldn’t do it that way now. The old propaganda methods all belong to the past: leaflets from planes, front organisations putting out your line, crude cartoons in lurid pamphlets, subsidised but obvious fellow travellers. These days you would use the weight of your western opponents against them. You would ask yourself what their anxieties and vulnerabilities were, and seek to exaggerate and exploit them. Disruption and disorientation are easier to invoke than acceptance of a party line coming from Moscow.
This thought came about partly because of the report we carried this week about how the actor Keith Allen is to host a hard-hitting new satire series on the RT TV channel. This follows a summer in which a double-decker bus manned by Allen and others and sponsored by RT travelled to five cities in the UK to discover new satirical talent, whose first quality, according to Allen, was that it should be “angry”.
Working with Allen will be the film-maker Victor Lewis-Smith, who said that “the first question Keith Allen and I asked is ‘Can we satirise Putin and Russia? Because if not, we’re out of the office now’.”
Lewis-Smith and Allen have teamed up to make angry art before. Their 2011 documentary Unlawful Killing, which was shown during the Cannes film festival that year, claimed that the Princess of Wales was murdered and that there had been an establishment cover-up.
The film, which was not shown in Britain because lawyers insisted on 87 cuts for legal reasons, was financed to the tune of £2.5 million by Mohamed Al-Fayed. It featured the pop psychologist Oliver James asserting that the Duke of Edinburgh was a psychopath, a “more-to-it-than-meets-the-eye” cameo of stunning vacuity from Piers Morgan and testimony from a supposed close friend of Diana’s, the “alternative healer” Simone Simmons. It’s instructive to note that earlier this year Simmons reprised her role by revealing that the late princess was still regularly speaking to her and had advised a vote to leave the EU. It was a stupid film made, I believe, by a sincere man.
But the strategy of RT, which was set up by Vladimir Putin and is financed by the Kremlin, is not to intone the line of the Russian foreign ministry. It will do that, but only as a minor part of an eclectic mix of discussion and entertainment in which its friends and enemies and its positions are often implied or disguised. You don’t get two bars of Midnight in Moscow followed by an announcement from the Praesidium of the People’s Congress of Soviets concerning agricultural production.
You get stories about how the US is “falling apart at the racial seams”, about how Russia is taking on Isis, about how Ukraine is a fascist kleptocracy, about how it’s all lies that Syria uses chemical weapons, about how refugees are bringing crime and terrorism to European streets, about state surveillance in the West, about the brave Catalan independence fighters, about why ordinary Brits want Brexit, about how the West is mired in poverty, corruption and cover-up, about vote-rigging and how you can’t trust democracy. The enemy of RT is anything that assists or argues for western cohesion. Macron is the current bête noire, Merkel is not far behind. Obama was bad, Blair was worse and Hillary is the most despicable of all. Any renegade former agent or washed-up investigative journalist running an improbable theory gets on RT. If it disrupts, it’s in.
This, I stress, comes from the top. It’s not some kind of accident, an accretion of culture and media assumptions like our own outlets tend to be. When Facebook dug down into the Russian paid ads that went out in the run-up to the US presidential election they found that they supported every candidate who opposed Hillary: Bernie Sanders, the pro-Russian Green candidate Jill Stein, Donald Trump. And their tone was a consistent negative populism, of the “it’s all going to hell because of the elite” sort.
So good luck Keith. Especially with the promised anti-Vlad gags, which could get you in big trouble in Russia itself. But you should know that you wouldn’t be there unless someone had calculated that you were doing a job for them. Someone who may have started off their own career long ago, delivering money in brown envelopes.
Whenever Russia today covers some remotely controversial subject, a disaffected flunkey gets wheeled out to make an unflattering comparison between Nato countries like Britain or America - and good old mother Russia.
During an industrial dispute or strike in Britain, for example, it is normal for some left wing politico, often an academic or swivel-eyed Trotskyist, to be wheeled out to tell the viewers that their country is going to hell in a handcart.
Because the Government is useless and politically corrupt - whereas we seldom see or hear very much about life under President Putin and his friends - for example, the recent barbaric treatment of Greenpeace activists.
Anyway I dearly wish that I had watched Russia Today during the great Grangemouth debacle involving the Unite trade union, its unimpressive leader Len McCluskey and the Labour Party selection contest in nearby Falkirk - which became bogged down in allegations of vote-rigging.
Now that would have made great viewing I'm sure, for unintended comic reasons if nothing else, but my mind was on other things, I'm sad to say.
Yet every time I watch the programme, I ask myself the same question:
Do the people who control the editorial content of Russia Today understand that a similar programme could never be made in President Putin's Russia?
If they do, then at least we can all sleep soundly in our beds - safe in the knowledge that, whatever else, irony is not dead.
Actor Keith Allen is bringing satire to the Putin-backed RT channel but he should ask himself why it really wants him
I must have met Reuben Falber around the time that he last took money from the Soviets. From 1958 to 1978, every few months, the rather unassuming man with the thick spectacles who was the assistant general secretary of the British Communist Party would brush up against someone from the Russian embassy outside Barons Court Tube station or on Hampstead Heath, and come away heavier to the tune of one envelope full of used banknotes. Only three people in the Communist Party knew about it. When the news came out after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was some consternation. My dad, who had worked as a full-time party official for 20 years, was genuinely astonished.
You wouldn’t do it that way now. The old propaganda methods all belong to the past: leaflets from planes, front organisations putting out your line, crude cartoons in lurid pamphlets, subsidised but obvious fellow travellers. These days you would use the weight of your western opponents against them. You would ask yourself what their anxieties and vulnerabilities were, and seek to exaggerate and exploit them. Disruption and disorientation are easier to invoke than acceptance of a party line coming from Moscow.
This thought came about partly because of the report we carried this week about how the actor Keith Allen is to host a hard-hitting new satire series on the RT TV channel. This follows a summer in which a double-decker bus manned by Allen and others and sponsored by RT travelled to five cities in the UK to discover new satirical talent, whose first quality, according to Allen, was that it should be “angry”.
Working with Allen will be the film-maker Victor Lewis-Smith, who said that “the first question Keith Allen and I asked is ‘Can we satirise Putin and Russia? Because if not, we’re out of the office now’.”
Lewis-Smith and Allen have teamed up to make angry art before. Their 2011 documentary Unlawful Killing, which was shown during the Cannes film festival that year, claimed that the Princess of Wales was murdered and that there had been an establishment cover-up.
The film, which was not shown in Britain because lawyers insisted on 87 cuts for legal reasons, was financed to the tune of £2.5 million by Mohamed Al-Fayed. It featured the pop psychologist Oliver James asserting that the Duke of Edinburgh was a psychopath, a “more-to-it-than-meets-the-eye” cameo of stunning vacuity from Piers Morgan and testimony from a supposed close friend of Diana’s, the “alternative healer” Simone Simmons. It’s instructive to note that earlier this year Simmons reprised her role by revealing that the late princess was still regularly speaking to her and had advised a vote to leave the EU. It was a stupid film made, I believe, by a sincere man.
Keith Allen took an RT-sponsored bus on a talent search in the summer - SOUTH WEST NEWS SERVICE
Allen is a believer in establishment and media cover-ups. He has a tattoo on his shoulder of Rinka, the Great Dane shot in lieu of Jeremy Thorpe’s blackmailer, Norman Scott back in 1975. When asked why he was working with RT on the satire tour, Allen told an interviewer from the channel: “I’ll give you two words, Jonathan Pie. RT was the only place that would give him a platform and we would like to think that RT is the only place that will give us a platform.”
Jonathan Pie is the name of a fictional British TV reporter played by actor Tom Walker. He is bitter, sweary and disillusioned, not least with the British media. An example of a riff shown on RT has Pie outside the Commons. He is furious with what he is being forced to say by his bosses. “In other news, Muslims are bad, China is bad, but not as bad as it used to be, and Russia is always bad . . .”
Get it? Now go on RT’s website. As of yesterday you’ll find a little jokey spoof poll. The question is “So what will meddling, cheating, bullying bad-boy Russia be accused of next?” The options include “starting the American opioid epidemic” and “existing”. Same message. Russia is being traduced by the establishment.
Pie no longer works with RT. Politically, like Allen, he celebrates the takeover of Labour and the vanquishing of the Blairites by Jeremy Corbyn. In that sense they are both a good fit for the channel’s British profile which features George Galloway’s talk show and which, as we reported yesterday, regularly puts some of the most hardline Corbynists, including shadow ministers, on its news sequences.
Allen is a believer in establishment and media cover-ups. He has a tattoo on his shoulder of Rinka, the Great Dane shot in lieu of Jeremy Thorpe’s blackmailer, Norman Scott back in 1975. When asked why he was working with RT on the satire tour, Allen told an interviewer from the channel: “I’ll give you two words, Jonathan Pie. RT was the only place that would give him a platform and we would like to think that RT is the only place that will give us a platform.”
Jonathan Pie is the name of a fictional British TV reporter played by actor Tom Walker. He is bitter, sweary and disillusioned, not least with the British media. An example of a riff shown on RT has Pie outside the Commons. He is furious with what he is being forced to say by his bosses. “In other news, Muslims are bad, China is bad, but not as bad as it used to be, and Russia is always bad . . .”
Get it? Now go on RT’s website. As of yesterday you’ll find a little jokey spoof poll. The question is “So what will meddling, cheating, bullying bad-boy Russia be accused of next?” The options include “starting the American opioid epidemic” and “existing”. Same message. Russia is being traduced by the establishment.
Pie no longer works with RT. Politically, like Allen, he celebrates the takeover of Labour and the vanquishing of the Blairites by Jeremy Corbyn. In that sense they are both a good fit for the channel’s British profile which features George Galloway’s talk show and which, as we reported yesterday, regularly puts some of the most hardline Corbynists, including shadow ministers, on its news sequences.
But the strategy of RT, which was set up by Vladimir Putin and is financed by the Kremlin, is not to intone the line of the Russian foreign ministry. It will do that, but only as a minor part of an eclectic mix of discussion and entertainment in which its friends and enemies and its positions are often implied or disguised. You don’t get two bars of Midnight in Moscow followed by an announcement from the Praesidium of the People’s Congress of Soviets concerning agricultural production.
You get stories about how the US is “falling apart at the racial seams”, about how Russia is taking on Isis, about how Ukraine is a fascist kleptocracy, about how it’s all lies that Syria uses chemical weapons, about how refugees are bringing crime and terrorism to European streets, about state surveillance in the West, about the brave Catalan independence fighters, about why ordinary Brits want Brexit, about how the West is mired in poverty, corruption and cover-up, about vote-rigging and how you can’t trust democracy. The enemy of RT is anything that assists or argues for western cohesion. Macron is the current bête noire, Merkel is not far behind. Obama was bad, Blair was worse and Hillary is the most despicable of all. Any renegade former agent or washed-up investigative journalist running an improbable theory gets on RT. If it disrupts, it’s in.
This, I stress, comes from the top. It’s not some kind of accident, an accretion of culture and media assumptions like our own outlets tend to be. When Facebook dug down into the Russian paid ads that went out in the run-up to the US presidential election they found that they supported every candidate who opposed Hillary: Bernie Sanders, the pro-Russian Green candidate Jill Stein, Donald Trump. And their tone was a consistent negative populism, of the “it’s all going to hell because of the elite” sort.
So good luck Keith. Especially with the promised anti-Vlad gags, which could get you in big trouble in Russia itself. But you should know that you wouldn’t be there unless someone had calculated that you were doing a job for them. Someone who may have started off their own career long ago, delivering money in brown envelopes.
Mother Russia (09/02/15)
I was idly flicking the TV channels the other day when I stopped to watch a bit of Russia Today - an odd programme if you ask me, as it seems to be much more interested the the perceived faults of western societies while having little, if anything, to say about the many challenges facing Mother Russia.
Anyway, the particular programme I stumbled across was about the changing nature of the urban environment in the UK and how city landscapes have been changing in response to issues like terrorism.
According to the commentators on Russia Today, major towns and cities in the UK are much less welcoming that they were years ago - apparently many areas of land which were once 'public spaces' have been privatised by big business, in areas like Canary Wharf in London, for example.
The programme also warned that UK citizens can all be tracked at will via our mobile phones as we go about our daily routine of work, rest and play - presumably by UK security services although the purpose all all this alleged monitoring was never explained.
Now having lived and worked in London during the 1980s, I immediately realised this was a load of old baloney - not least because Canary Wharf was not a lovely open public space like Hyde Park before it turned into the big commercial sector it is today.
So, I thought to myself - "These people are talking nonsense!" - and on the screen at the time was a chap called Professor Stephen Graham who was burbling on about something or other which prompted me to 'Google' his name.
And here's what my Google search produced - a report from the BBC's web site from March 2013 which made me laugh my head off, as it confirmed all my suspicions about the kind of people who appear on these Russia Today programmes.
"Dissociative state" indeed - that's just a fancy way of saying the man was completely drunk, off his head and out of control because why else would he be vandalising other people's property dressed in just his suit jacket and underpants?
I'll bet the neighbours felt terrorised and wished there was a bit more monitoring taking place of drunken vandals at loose in the streets of Jesmond, which I know well.
See post below from the blog site archive dated 14 December 2013.
Newcastle professor Stephen Graham to pay for graffiti spree
Anyway, the particular programme I stumbled across was about the changing nature of the urban environment in the UK and how city landscapes have been changing in response to issues like terrorism.
According to the commentators on Russia Today, major towns and cities in the UK are much less welcoming that they were years ago - apparently many areas of land which were once 'public spaces' have been privatised by big business, in areas like Canary Wharf in London, for example.
The programme also warned that UK citizens can all be tracked at will via our mobile phones as we go about our daily routine of work, rest and play - presumably by UK security services although the purpose all all this alleged monitoring was never explained.
Now having lived and worked in London during the 1980s, I immediately realised this was a load of old baloney - not least because Canary Wharf was not a lovely open public space like Hyde Park before it turned into the big commercial sector it is today.
So, I thought to myself - "These people are talking nonsense!" - and on the screen at the time was a chap called Professor Stephen Graham who was burbling on about something or other which prompted me to 'Google' his name.
And here's what my Google search produced - a report from the BBC's web site from March 2013 which made me laugh my head off, as it confirmed all my suspicions about the kind of people who appear on these Russia Today programmes.
"Dissociative state" indeed - that's just a fancy way of saying the man was completely drunk, off his head and out of control because why else would he be vandalising other people's property dressed in just his suit jacket and underpants?
I'll bet the neighbours felt terrorised and wished there was a bit more monitoring taking place of drunken vandals at loose in the streets of Jesmond, which I know well.
See post below from the blog site archive dated 14 December 2013.
Newcastle professor Stephen Graham to pay for graffiti spree
A report by a forensic psychiatrist found the professor was in a "dissociative state"
Prof admits 'arbitrary' vandalism
A university professor has been ordered to pay £28,000 compensation for scratching cars while dressed in his underpants and a suit jacket.
Stephen Graham, 48, from Jesmond, Newcastle, admitted four counts of criminal damage in January.
He was given a nine month prison sentence, suspended for a year at Newcastle Crown Court.
Graham scratched the words "very silly", "really wrong" and "arbitrary" on 27 cars in Jesmond in August 2011.
'Detached from reality'
Graham, who is based at Newcastle University's school of architecture, planning and landscape, had drunk alcohol mixed with medication before he caused £28,000 of damage to cars including a Mercedes, an Audi, a Volvo and a Mitsubishi.
Prof admits 'arbitrary' vandalism
A university professor has been ordered to pay £28,000 compensation for scratching cars while dressed in his underpants and a suit jacket.
Stephen Graham, 48, from Jesmond, Newcastle, admitted four counts of criminal damage in January.
He was given a nine month prison sentence, suspended for a year at Newcastle Crown Court.
Graham scratched the words "very silly", "really wrong" and "arbitrary" on 27 cars in Jesmond in August 2011.
'Detached from reality'
Graham, who is based at Newcastle University's school of architecture, planning and landscape, had drunk alcohol mixed with medication before he caused £28,000 of damage to cars including a Mercedes, an Audi, a Volvo and a Mitsubishi.
The cars were damaged while parked on Northumberland Gardens in Jesmond
The spree took place in Northumberland Gardens, a few streets away from where Graham lived in Lansdowne Gardens.
A report by a forensic psychiatrist, Don Grubin, for the defence, found the professor was in a "dissociative state" when he scratched the cars, and was "detached from reality".
Judge Guy Whitburn accepted his behaviour was totally out of character but said the compensation - effectively the professor and his wife's life savings - must be paid in full.
He added he hoped Mr Graham would be able to resume his career.
Julian Smith, mitigating, said his client was not merely drunk, and he showed no signs of aggression when arrested, but had a bad reaction to the medication and alcohol.
A spokesperson for Newcastle University said: "We will be considering the matter through normal university procedures. We are unable to comment further on an individual employee."
The spree took place in Northumberland Gardens, a few streets away from where Graham lived in Lansdowne Gardens.
A report by a forensic psychiatrist, Don Grubin, for the defence, found the professor was in a "dissociative state" when he scratched the cars, and was "detached from reality".
Judge Guy Whitburn accepted his behaviour was totally out of character but said the compensation - effectively the professor and his wife's life savings - must be paid in full.
He added he hoped Mr Graham would be able to resume his career.
Julian Smith, mitigating, said his client was not merely drunk, and he showed no signs of aggression when arrested, but had a bad reaction to the medication and alcohol.
A spokesperson for Newcastle University said: "We will be considering the matter through normal university procedures. We are unable to comment further on an individual employee."
Russia Today (14/12/13)
I've taken to watching a new news channel recently - Russia Today - which as far as I can tell seems to consist of lots of people (presenters and contributors) who admire Russia greatly - while harbouring an intense dislike of the west.
Whenever Russia today covers some remotely controversial subject, a disaffected flunkey gets wheeled out to make an unflattering comparison between Nato countries like Britain or America - and good old mother Russia.
During an industrial dispute or strike in Britain, for example, it is normal for some left wing politico, often an academic or swivel-eyed Trotskyist, to be wheeled out to tell the viewers that their country is going to hell in a handcart.
Because the Government is useless and politically corrupt - whereas we seldom see or hear very much about life under President Putin and his friends - for example, the recent barbaric treatment of Greenpeace activists.
Anyway I dearly wish that I had watched Russia Today during the great Grangemouth debacle involving the Unite trade union, its unimpressive leader Len McCluskey and the Labour Party selection contest in nearby Falkirk - which became bogged down in allegations of vote-rigging.
Now that would have made great viewing I'm sure, for unintended comic reasons if nothing else, but my mind was on other things, I'm sad to say.
Yet every time I watch the programme, I ask myself the same question:
Do the people who control the editorial content of Russia Today understand that a similar programme could never be made in President Putin's Russia?
If they do, then at least we can all sleep soundly in our beds - safe in the knowledge that, whatever else, irony is not dead.
Rocking the Boat (18/11/18)
I enjoyed this article by Darren McGarvey in The Scotsman is which the writer and activist recounts his treatment on Twitter after making some mild criticism of Alex Salmond's decision to hitch his wagon to the Kremlin controlled TV channel, Russia Today.
Now this reminded me of my days in the Labour Party 20 years ago when any criticism of the party leadership was met with scowls, frowns and even accusations of disloyalty on the basis that:
a) We're in the middle of an election campaign
b) We're just a few months away from an important election campaign
c) We've just fought an important election campaign - give folks a chance
In other words, the message was 'stop rocking the bloody boat' - either you're with us or against us, so shut your gob!
I suspect Twitter makes things far worse these days because the anonymous 'avatars' that most people hide behind tend to make them even more aggressive and belligerent than normal.
Even so, I hope Darren doesn't shut his gob since he has lots of interesting things to say.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/darren-mcgarvey-make-a-point-about-alex-salmond-and-the-snp-at-your-peril-1-4612349
Darren McGarvey: Make a point about Alex Salmond and the SNP at your peril
Alex Salmond's decision to host a show on Russia Today could be a problem for the SNP
Not even in London can you escape the wrath of angry Nationalists on Twitter, says Darren McGarvey.
Yesterday I went on LBC radio to talk about my book Poverty Safari. In a far-reaching conversation, covering the interplay between early years, chronic stress, political exclusion, austerity and the strain on public services, I was asked about the long-term consequences of inaction on social inequality.
I responded by saying it has given rise to various constitutional crises both in the UK and Europe, which are beginning to undermine social cohesion. Zooming in on the UK, I referred to the Scottish independence referendum and Brexit, careful to state clearly that I was not drawing an equivalence between the two. You don’t need to be a nationalist to see the key difference between Sturgeon and Farage: one blames Westminster, the other blames immigrants.
Yet, somehow, an intrepid troupe of social media-based nationalists, decided that what I really said was that Sturgeon and Farage were the same thing. Did you catch that there? I said one thing, for the avoidance of doubt, but a bunch of people decided to interpret that as the exact opposite of what I meant.
As you can imagine, it brought me back down to Earth, with a bang, after news that my book was the number one biography on Amazon had sent me into a state of catatonic shock.
It seems, not even in London, can you escape the gravity of this obscure corner of Scottish Twitter. Whatever your opinion on the ever-looming constitutional question in Scotland, I’m sure you’ll agree that public discourse is tremendously strained. This is exacerbated by the limitations of social media, which isn’t a great forum for expressing nuance and complexity.
But this week has been especially trying, thanks to one tweet about Alex Salmond’s decision to present a show for Russian state broadcaster, Russia Today: “The issue around Salmond’s show is not the controversy stoked by initial announcement. It’s the fact he is setting up a new permanent residence in the debate by creating a previously unthinkable association between the Kremlin and the drive for Scottish independence.”
The tweet was not a value judgement, simply an attempt at analysis. My take was simple: Salmond’s show could create a headache for Sturgeon that won’t be as easy to move past as his usual interventions. This may be exacerbated by the Russia issue and the fact the show is weekly, therefore, any blow-back will be regularly reinforced.
