A Pippa Crerar and Luke Harding special appears on the front page of The Guardian this morning: “Queen was asked to block Evgeny Lebedev’s peerage”. The top sleuths write: “Government officials asked whether the late Queen would block Evgeny Lebedev’s peerage because of concerns that he could be a national security risk due to his father’s links to the Putin regime, a documentary has claimed.” Which sounds very dramatic – until you read on to the third paragraph: “The Palace is understood to have refused [to block it]”. Doh!

This lame hand out appears to be the most that can be dredged out of a new Channel 4 documentary on Evgeny Lebedev which is slated for broadcast tomorrow. It is not as if the controversy was unreported at the time. The Guardian is the only paper giving Channel 4’s film any press. Guido hears there is nothing more in the film than has already been endlessly recycled. Apparently, the investigation is amusingly forced to conclude that there is no suggestion of anything untoward on the part of Lebedev himself…

So, what could account for The Guardian’s appetite for targeting him? Evgeny is a British citizen and regime critic who has a Russian name – but his country of birth shouldn’t bother the progressives at The Guardian. And surely a liberal newspaper would celebrate his vital investment in underwriting (expensive) British journalism – especially that of left-leaning outlets like The Independent. Which, by coincidence, is the Guardian’s fiercest competitor…