Will Salmond ask questions of Putin’s interest in Scottish independence?

Should the British government be more suspicious of Russia? Theresa May obviously thinks so, telling Vladimir Putin in a speech this week that ‘we know what you are doing and you will not succeed’. Jeremy Corbyn is less keen, with his spokesman telling journalists that ‘I think we need to see more evidence of what’s being talked about… [but] Jeremy has made clear on a number of occasions that we need to see an attempt through dialogue to ratchet down tensions with Russia.’ 

Meanwhile, Alex Salmond’s decision to host a chat show on Kremlin-backed channel Russia Today last week ratcheted up tensions with his own party, with Nicola Sturgeon distancing herself from Salmond and saying she wouldn’t have advised him to do such a thing. The matter pops up in a column in the Courier today by Salmond’s former speechwriter-turned-critic Alex Bell, who isn’t full of compliments for his old boss, describing him as ‘Mr Putin’s patsy’ who has an ‘insecure ego’ and a ‘useful idiot’.