The shadow lord chancellor, Richard Burgon, is a regular. The shadow minister for fire and emergency services, Chris Williamson, is fast becoming one, as is the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, Peter Dowd. These senior Labour men go on RT, the Russian television channel, unpaid. Some Tories, such as Mike Freer, the assistant chief whip, appear but get paid up to £1,000 a time.
First known as Russia Today and then as RT, this channel was set up in 2005 and designed to look like existing western outlets such as CNN. It would have a similar mix of news and features, branded and presented in much the same way. But it would have one critical difference: it would be acting in the foreign policy