A Russian role reversal in Hackland

When war in Ukraine broke out the focus in our little world was on the PR trade.

Who did work for some Russian or other that looked questionable then and bang out of order now?

Are they going to stop? Apologise? Quit in shame?

At the moment there are more questions coming to Hackland than Flakland.

The Sunday Times just did a number on Evening Standard and Independent owner Evgeny Lebedev and how his friendship with Boris Johnson deepened “despite MI6 concerns”.

Newspapers don’t normally do such jobs on other newspaper proprietors. So this is a sign that even papers think the ownership issue can no longer be overlooked.

Over at the BBC, Media Editor and former Independent editor Amol Rajan might be under some pressure to declare an interest here. Is he going to report this story or not?

Rajan is a brilliant broadcaster, but there is no question he is, or at least was, close to Lebedev.

Someone tweeted: “Looking forward to Amol Rajan asking tough questions about Evgeny Lebedev’s peerage on Today this week”.

Fair enough.

Meanwhile the Daily Telegraph is facing some heat over its presumably lucrative and long running Russian supplements.

A story in The Guardian as far ago as 2014 was headlined: “Telegraph to continue publishing Russian propaganda supplement.”

How much did it make on these things? And should it not give that money away?

I’ve been asking Russian related questions of a few companies lately and the chopsier flaks have pushed back — who are you to ask about this?

I think it is a reasonable point. And I don’t see why the group used to asking the questions shouldn’t have to answer a few just now.