For ten years, Matthew Norman worked for the Russian media mogul and mingled with his celebrity pals in London, Sussex and Umbria
Inside the court of Lord Lebedev
H
alf an hour into my first Evgeny Lebedev Christmas drinks party, it occurred that the only person in the room I didn’t recognise was me. His central London flat had been magically transformed that 2015 evening into a kind of animatronic Madame Tussauds, thronging with scores and scores of the globally famed jostling for space. David Cameron, Judi Dench, Eddie Redmayne, Mick Jagger, Kristin Scott-Thomas, Nigel Farage, Monica Lewinsky, Ian McKellen and on, and on, and on. The corridor to the main reception room was too rammed to penetrate – so I nipped for Dutch courage into a side room with a bar. As the tender poured, I glanced nervily around. Alone on a sofa in the corner, so still she might have been in cryogenic stasis, was Shirley Bassey. Eventually, a former colleague wandered in, and we spoke in hushed awe about the mescaline-fuelled surreality of this, the professional autograph-hunter’s wettest dream. ‘Mind you,’ I murmured, ‘I’ve just spotted another civilian. That portly black guy over there…’ ‘Ah yes,’ said the old colleague, ‘that’s the President of Gabon.’ At that moment, someone – Ginger Spice, perhaps, or the late Sonny Liston (one forgets) – meandered over to ask the president, Ali Bongo, how things were back in Libreville. Whether Lebedev’s career as history’s most assiduous collector of the 20 The Oldie Spring 2022
celebrated can survive his ermine-robed controversy, time will tell. Friendships built on sturgeon eggs and woodpanelled executive jets are notoriously vulnerable when a mild zephyr of public opinion becomes a typhoon. But whatever and wherever the noble Lord’s future, his past establishes him as one of modern Britain’s most emblematic and intriguing presences. Who is this man, and what is his game? Although I’d indirectly worked for him for years as an Independent and Evening Standard columnist, I first met him about a decade ago at dinner with a shared friend. While his erstwhile KGB dad Alexander stayed in Moscow leading (or affecting to lead) the resistance to Putin, the son was bestriding glitzy London like a neatly bearded, mildly accented colossus. I liked him. He was unpompous, mischievous and smart, and an astonishingly good listener. After that evening, my favoured servant status brought sporadic invitations to meals and parties. I was the equivalent of the local GP in an Agatha Christie, asked to dine at the great house now and then to make up the numbers for bridge. Besides, the grand need a sprinkling of little people to magnify their grandeur. I was at the legendary garden party in Hampton Court where, two days after the Brexit vote, Lebedev posed with Rupert Murdoch and the Union flag-shoed Farage while an admirably drunk Lily Allen live-tweeted with photos. By then, the invitations had become supplemented by summonses. At shortest notice, I was commanded to
