Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 6 hours 14 minutes
We still have one more episode remaining in this Londongrad series, but I am excited to invite you to an event in the meantime. Visit the Tortoise website to purchase a ticket.
The Russia report. Boris Johnson saw it before his general election landslide in 2019. But his government went out of its way to make sure it didn’t see the light of day until long after the election had been fought and won.
Years of warnings about Russia’s intentions had gone unheeded; discounted as scaremongering. But then came the invasion of Crimea. In spite of it all, the Lebedevs' ascent in London continued, and so did the extraordinary parties.
There comes a moment in any successful invasion of a country when you can no longer hide, your plans have to become obvious. It’s a moment of jeopardy, but if you can get through it then the scale of your ambitions can shift dramatically.
The oligarchs who made their way to London in the early 2000s presented themselves as embodiments of the new Russia; beneficiaries of Vladimir Putin’s new order, not slaves to it. Those were the terms on which Britain let them in, but it was mugged.
Britain prides itself on being impregnable; a country which hasn’t been invaded for 1000 years and can’t be bought. The Lebedevs give the lie to all that. They spent a lot, but not a fortune, buying their way into British public life.