Competing with Sir Lindsay Hoyle for making the daftest imaginable comment about the Queen’s funeral was Mary Dejevsky, who wrote a piece in Alexander Lebedev’s Independent headlined “Putin should have been invited”. By way of clarification, Dejevksy – who understandably feels the need to point out on Twitter that she is not Russian – told her bemused followers: “I said he should have been invited, not that he should come.”
Dejevksy, a former Moscow correspondent for the Times, has been going on for years about how the Russian president has felt threatened by Nato and she has urged people to try to understand him. Last February, nine days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Dejevsky told radio station LBC that the Kremlin dictator “doesn’t want any more territory”, and that there was “no question” of him trying to take any from Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Alexander Lebedev is saying if he can’t find a taker for the London Evening Standard – one of his other British newspapers – he may have to shut it down.
