More popular than Jesus Cleave's article mentioned that Lennon was "reading extensively about religion", and quoted a comment he made: Cleave's interview with Lennon was published in the "Evening Standard" in March 1966 and provoked no public reaction in the UK. Church attendance there was in decline and the Christian churches were making no secret of the need to transform their image into something more relevant to modern times. Music historian Jonathan Gould wrote, "The satire comedians had had a field day with the increasingly desperate attempts of the Church to make itself seem more relevant ('Don't call me vicar, call me "Dick" ...')."
Evening Standard Associated Newspapers bought out the remaining stake, turning it into "The Standard". In 1987 the "Evening News" was briefly revived to compete with Robert Maxwell's "London Daily News", but was reabsorbed into "The Standard" later that year, after the collapse of Maxwell's paper. In 1988 the "Evening Standard" included the by-line "Incorporating the 'Evening News'", which remained until the paper's sale in 2009. On 21 January 2009, the Russian businessman and former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev and his son Evgeny Lebedev, owners of "The Independent", agreed to purchase control of the newspaper at £1 for 64 percent ownership. A few