Alex Salmond’s new RT show is suffering teething problems after it emerged that tweets read out on the programme were posted by a variety of dubious accounts, at least one of which is controlled by the show’s producers. Salmond said he had received an “avalanche” of tweets, but:

• A tweet asking “so why RT?” was first up, which the show claimed was sent in by @ellalorenR. No @ellalorenR account exists…
• The question “if you were Prime Minister would you stop Brexit?” was sent by @thegodfather12. This account, set up in 2009, has never tweeted before…
• @admrobrts asked “What does Slainte mean?”, regarding Salmond’s production company Slainte Media. Twitter shows it was posted at 11.08AM, more than three hours after it had been read out on the pre-recorded show…
• Finally, @lastjohn asked “When are you getting President Trump on your show?”@lastjohn is the private account of Luisa St John, an RT employee who appears in the credits as “Series Director”…

Good start…