Russia....Johnson
"The Labour party on Sunday called for an investigation into Boris Johnson’s nomination of the Russian businessman Lord Evgeny Lebedev for a peerage.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer wrote to Lord Paul Bew, chair of the House of Lords appointments commission, to ask him to “make available to the public the vetting advice provided” on Lebedev’s peerage.
The Sunday Times reported the UK intelligence services in 2020 warned against granting a peerage for Lebedev, a close friend of the prime minister and proprietor of the Evening Standard newspaper, on national security grounds.
Lebedev is the son of Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire former banker and KGB agent.
The Sunday Times reported that in 2013 Sir John Sawers, then head of MI6, declined to meet Evgeny Lebedev at a lunch with one of his newspaper editors.
When Lebedev was put forward for a peerage by Johnson in 2019, the newspaper said the House of Lords appointments commission advised against the nomination.
Johnson reportedly said any objections to Lebedev being nominated for a peerage constituted “anti-Russianism”. Lebedev took up his seat in the Lords in 2020."
www.ft.com
"The Labour party on Sunday called for an investigation into Boris Johnson’s nomination of the Russian businessman Lord Evgeny Lebedev for a peerage.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer wrote to Lord Paul Bew, chair of the House of Lords appointments commission, to ask him to “make available to the public the vetting advice provided” on Lebedev’s peerage.
The Sunday Times reported the UK intelligence services in 2020 warned against granting a peerage for Lebedev, a close friend of the prime minister and proprietor of the Evening Standard newspaper, on national security grounds.
Lebedev is the son of Alexander Lebedev, a billionaire former banker and KGB agent.
The Sunday Times reported that in 2013 Sir John Sawers, then head of MI6, declined to meet Evgeny Lebedev at a lunch with one of his newspaper editors.
When Lebedev was put forward for a peerage by Johnson in 2019, the newspaper said the House of Lords appointments commission advised against the nomination.
Johnson reportedly said any objections to Lebedev being nominated for a peerage constituted “anti-Russianism”. Lebedev took up his seat in the Lords in 2020."
www.ft.com
