{"id":753027,"date":"2026-08-29T00:20:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T00:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753027\/"},"modified":"2026-08-29T00:20:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T00:20:11","slug":"a-huge-vanity-project-when-sputnik-crash-landed-in-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/753027\/","title":{"rendered":"‘A huge vanity project’ – when Sputnik crash-landed in Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s important to remember the context in which Sputnik was operating in 2016.<\/p>\n

The UK had just voted to leave the European Union<\/a> and David Cameron had stood down as prime minister, to be replaced by Theresa May.<\/p>\n

Brexit dominated UK politics, and in Scotland that, in turn, contributed to the SNP dominating the 2015 and 2016 Westminster and Holyrood<\/a> elections.<\/p>\n

Despite losing the 2014 referendum, the pro-independence movement appeared to be on the front foot.<\/p>\n

Sputnik made much of the pro-indy credentials of its leading journalists. Looking back, Carolyn believes that was always the strategy.<\/p>\n

“I realise now that I think their entire point was let these slightly left-wing progressive types do the show that they want,” she says.<\/p>\n

“They gave us free rein because that might build some legitimacy so that one day, when they’ve got an audience, they can just flip to their own agenda.<\/p>\n

“And I see now in hindsight, that’s kind of what I think their aim perhaps was.”<\/p>\n

Stewart McDonald was one of 56 SNP MPs elected in 2015<\/a>. He would become his party’s defence spokesman, and one of Sputnik’s most high-profile critics.<\/p>\n

From quite early on, he wanted to put “clear blue water” between it and the SNP.<\/p>\n

“We very deliberately set about making RT and Sputnik as toxic as possible,” he says.<\/p>\n

“People knew that going on it, I would openly criticise them.<\/p>\n

“I think that’s partly why so few people did go on it, because they understood this is not a good thing for us to be seen to be engaging with.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s important to remember the context in which Sputnik was operating in 2016. The UK had just voted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":753028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-753027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-science","tag-space","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=753027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/753028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=753027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=753027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=753027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}