It doesn't seem the most obvious business move but Russian billionaire tycoon Alexander Lebedev has bought the debt-crippled London Evening Standard for the nominal sum of £1. In doing so, the former KGB spy has become the first Russian oligarch to own a British title - and has opened up a potted debate about national decline. Your guess is as good as mine as to what Mr Lebedev actually intends to do with an ailing paper which has losses estimated as high as £25m annually (a smokescreen for some Bond villain-style, mini-media empire, perhaps?) but one thing he has promised is that editorial independence will be safeguarded. Which sounds promising until you consider that his son, Evgeny, is being tipped to become the new editor.
I used to love the Standard. I still do, in many respects. The ES magazine on Friday may make me feel rotten for not being invited to all those glamorous showbiz parties, but reading the 'My London' section at the back usually gets me excited about the weekend, providing ample inspiration for places to visit. When I was a child living in the countryside, my father used to come home from work brandishing a copy of the theatreland-friendly, tabloid-style, picture-heavy paper which broke news from that unknown buzzing city called London where I was born but no longer lived. What's more, when David Mellor wasn't writing about his beloved Chelsea, the sports section seemed entirely devoted to my team Arsenal - until the arrival of Mr Abramovich in SW6.
Like the rise in foreign influence in football, the installation of a Russian at the helm of a 181-year-old British institution such as the Standard has seen many media commentators mourn the corrosion of national pride. Perhaps a better signal of national pride's relentless fall, however, are the very free-sheets that have made the Standard's life such a tricky one.
Granted, the Standard's former owners, Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail & General Trust, must shoulder much of the blame for coming up with the idea of London Lite (née Standard Lite) in the first place. But the subsequent rise of the lamentable London Paper, with its celebrity tat masquerading as news, seems to have put the final nail in the coffin. Forget too that its owner, the Australian Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, is making an almighty loss on the publication - the real damage is for Lebedev's new plaything, which, costing 50p more than its free rivals, no longer sets the standard each evening on the Underground. If anything is making London liter it is these poor excuses for keeping printers in a job, but that's another matter.
One former national broadsheet editor told me the Standard's sale was "a sad omission of defeat" by Rothermere, adding: "The paper has been slowly dying for years and the mad battle of the give-aways has almost finished it off. If the former KGB man wants to invest in it, then I suppose we should be grateful and wish him luck, for any capital city should have its own evening paper. It appears that his other papers produce some quite brave journalism, which is encouraging, and we can hardly start to be concerned about foreigners owning our newspapers at this stage. It is tempting to make an exception for Russians, and friends of Putin would surely not be welcome, but that, apparently, is not Mr Lebedev."
So, what can Londoners expect from Lebedev when he officially takes the reins? It's hard to tell, exactly, but it seems that besides the issue of editorial integrity, the paper will be rebranded, its staff probably rejigged. Unlike Abramovich, who came to London with no prior knowledge of football and quickly agreed to splurge £15m on Juan Sebastian Veron, Lebedev is no novice - two years ago he teamed up with ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to take over leading Russian liberal paper Novaya Gazeta. Rumours now abound that Gorbachev will be joined by former British PM Tony Blair on a new editorial board that will usher in a new era at the Standard. People are also talking of a takeover bid for the struggling Independent paper, which recently moved into the DMGT's office block on High Street Kensington (which begs the question, will the Indy have to change its name?).
Given Lebedev's publicised on-going personal feud with Ken Livingston - ironically making him the ideal candidate for the notoriously anti-Ken Standard - Mayor Boris Johnson should derive a modicum of support. Expect also some nice words for compatriot Abramovich: on his online journal, Mr Lebedev last year said his friend Roman was the only person who could sort out Moscow's chronic traffic problem (it's worse than London, believe me…) and labelled him the "obvious choice" for the position as Mayor of the Russian capital.
Come to think of it, Abramovich might soon have more time for such a key role back in his homeland: if you believe papers such as the Standard, the oil tycoon is ready to listen to offers for the debt-ridden football club he bought for around £140m in 2003 and subsequently bolstered with £500m in loans to buy new players. Abramovich's fortune is said to have shed £3bn during the global credit crunch, and with the Russian supposedly suffering liquidity problems, he would jump at the opportunity of selling Chelsea to a rich Arabian oil magnate.
So, in London's ever changing game of movers-and-Sheikhers, it could be one Russian in, one Russian out - and possibly another strand of the Saudi royal family entering the fray - all rather standard for our cosmopolitan capital.
Recession: it's official!
The recession was made official today. Hurrah! The worst since 1980, if you want to be even more cheery about it. And London will be the worst hit according to a study by the Centre for Economics and Business. It's a case of 'everything must go' – including several hundred thousands jobs, apparently. But there are good things to come out of the downturn – businesses that suddenly really want your custom, for example. Service may actually be delivered with a smile. And there are bargains galore in what appear to be permanent sales. Just last year London was found to be the most expensive city in Europe; isn't it about time we re-dressed the balance?
The London Stage Thrives
"It was a quite remarkable year," says Nica Burns, President of the Society of London Theatre of 2008. Last year London's theatres had a record-breaking year as both attendances and box office revenues reached new levels despite economic troubles. Numbers attending musicals, plays, opera and dance performances in the capital totalled 13,807,286, up 1% on the previous record set in 2007. Box office revenue amounted to £480,563,674, up 3% on 2007's record figure. "It would seem people still want to be entertained and stimulated in numbers," Nica concludes.
Slumdog Squatters
Two Park Lane properties worth £15 million apiece were taken over by squatters shortly after Christmas - now there's a Christmas present worth keeping. A fiddling occupant of the luxury house in one of London's prime postcodes appeared at a balcony, playing his violin to the entertainment of the assembled press. Papers like the Daily Mail love this kind of thing. It does, of course, beg the question of where the owners are. And why these mansion buildings are standing empty. In these recessionary times, surely maximising housing resources should be encouraged. The two pleased looking bailiffs who dogged water from overhead as they delivered a court notice may not agree.
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