Before joining Tortoise, Katie worked on BBC Radio 4’s daily news podcast, Beyond Today, and was a regular producer on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show.
Katie Gunning
Producer
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Thursday 23 June 2022
Episode 6: Lord of the spies
It’s no secret that political patronage can get you a place in the House of Lords. But even people who understand the system well – even peers themselves – were appalled when Boris Johnson decided to extend his patronage to Evgeny Lebedev.
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Thursday 16 June 2022
Episode 5: A blind eye
The Intelligence and Security Committee of the British Parliament produced a report into Russian interference in British democracy. Boris Johnson saw it before his general election landslide in 2019. But his government went out of its way to make sure it didn’t see the light of day until long after the election had been fought and won
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Thursday 9 June 2022
Episode 4: Doubling down
Years of warnings about Russia’s intentions had gone unheeded; discounted as scaremongering. But then came the invasion of Crimea, and the end of any doubts. In spite of it all, the Lebedevs’ ascent in London continued, and so did the extraordinary parties
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Thursday 2 June 2022
Episode 3: Project Venus
There comes a moment in any successful invasion of a country when you can no longer hide, your plans have to become obvious. It’s a moment of jeopardy but if you can get through it – as Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev did in Britain when they bought first the Evening Standard and later The Independent – then the scale of your ambitions can shift dramatically
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Thursday 2 June 2022
Episode 2: The Royal Borough of Kensington and Moscow
The oligarchs who made their way to London in the early 2000s and changed it presented themselves as embodiments of the new Russia; members of the global elite, and arms-length beneficiaries of Vladimir Putin’s new order, not slaves to it. Those were the terms on which Britain let them in, but it was mugged
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Thursday 2 June 2022
Episode 1: The advance party
Britain prides itself on being impregnable; a country which hasn’t been invaded for 1000 years and can’t be bought. The Lebedevs give the lie to all that. They spent a lot, but not a fortune, buying their way into British public life. And they did it in a way which perhaps nobody had tried before: they amused the people who mattered
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Monday 11 April 2022
Greg Barker: the lord’s work
The days of the Russian oligarch in London are numbered. What fate awaits the enablers – those well-connected people who worked for and provided services to wealthy Russians? This is the story of one of them
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Monday 7 March 2022
Russian warship, go f*** yourself
We thought the Russians were masters of the information war; that they’d sweep Ukraine aside. Why is it not turning out that way?
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Monday 14 February 2022
Modi’s warrior pose
Narendra Modi’s dominance of Indian politics is built on a knowing appeal to traditional Indian values: Hindu values. He has turned yoga into an unlikely but powerful weapon in his campaign