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Leave of absence from The Lords
Selling her assets to try and get her money away
Hancock stitching her up in his book
Are we finally about to see one of these ghastly people get sent down?
I certainly hope so, but a 'leave of absence'? It sounds like a way of staying away until the heat dies down.
I look forward to the day when this whole corrupt lot is rounded up and cast into prison. I am no parliamentary historian, and I am well aware of the evils of Thatcherism, but honestly... has there ever been a more corrupt government? I mean literally; not just in the sense that we throw about the word when anyone is in power that we don't like.
Leave of absence from The Lords
Selling her assets to try and get her money away
A trial and jail option seems appropriate in this case too.
but honestly… has there ever been a more corrupt government?
In modern times, I don't think so.
Johnson just destroyed any accountability in public office.
They seem to just do as want, or as told by the IEA and ERG.
Whilst on Leave of Absence she doesn’t have to declare her financial interests - how convenient….
but honestly… has there ever been a more corrupt government?
Not even close. They're on a completely different level. They don't even attempt to cover it up. The arse-end of the Major government with Jonathan Aitkin and his slush funds and Hamilton and his envelopes full of cash look like models of probity and integrity compared to this shower of shysters
If we'd heard about some state in Africa having a 'VIP Lane' where the government awarded billions of pounds of contracts to their mates, without any competition or oversight, we'd be laughing at them and mocking them as a banana republic. But right there is the reality of Borises Brexit Britain. Bent as *, the lot of them
And Hancocks got some *ing front, having sorted out another equally as dodgy multi-million pound PPE contract with his local pub landlord
The ****ing lot of 'em need stringing up for seeing a global pandemic as an opportunity for some proper snout-in-the-trough profiteering
If she does end up in jail I doubt she'll have as much support as she does just now.
That poor child in the photo looks ashamed of their antics
He might be selling a few more copies of his book, but won't these disclosures compromise any future inquiry?
@Binners - that's pretty much word for word what i'd type. Its disgraceful. That whole Westminster attitude and bubble needs bursting. One of the problems is that the public are very quick to forget....
Jail
Won't happen. Not in Brexit Britain.
I think the most we (as normal people who obey laws and rules) will get is her resigning from the Lords and keeping most of the loot.
My money would be on her retaining her titles and the loot - after a protracted legal process, no doubt - with a damaged reputation - damage that will easily be assuaged by all those homes, fab foreign holidays, private education for the kids etc.
R4 were very careful to broadcast her refutation earlier, though - so maybe there is something in the wind about a big story that they are at pains not to prejudice. The smart thing to do now, if you are someone like Jolyon Maugham, is to put some pressure on Gove. He would throw her under the bus to save his own skin.
But I genuinely don't think much will happen to Mone in the way of justice (as defined by a normal rule-following prole).
If she does end up in jail I doubt she’ll have as much support as she does just now.
Giving support is where her career started. 😉
Jail
Won’t happen. Not in Brexit Britain.
Not in Britain, regardless.
won’t these disclosures compromise any future inquiry?
I don't believe a public inquiry can be "prejudiced" in the same way as a trial by jury, if that's what you're getting at?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63870910
The "VIP lane" to fast track companies recommended by MPs and peers for Covid contracts was a "scandal of epic proportions", Labour has said.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner said it "allowed the shameful waste of taxpayers' money and inexcusable profiteering by Tory cronies".
But Minister Nick Gibb said at the start of the pandemic "we were desperate" to get protective equipment.
[ who wound down our pandemic preparedness, especially PPE supplies... huh? ]
Labour is trying to force ministers to publish correspondence about contracts.
At a Commons debate later, the party will present a motion to MPs calling for the release of documents and advice relating to government contracts awarded to one company, PPE Medpro.
The government has faced questions over the company's alleged links to Conservative peer Michelle Mone.
If Labour's motion passes then the government would have to publish the documents, although they may argue they can be redacted for legal reasons or because of commercial sensitivity.Conservative MPs are expected to abstain from the vote, which would allow the motion to pass.
Harry_the_Spider
Full MemberLeave of absence from The Lords
Selling her assets to try and get her money away
Hancock stitching her up in his bookAre we finally about to see one of these ghastly people get sent down?
Nope, the property will be owned by some off shore trust, and she'll have the best lawyers money can buy. There is zero chance of justice. If the allegations are true it really ought to be a custodial sentence.
I think there's more chance of the tories changing the law than her actually being punished.
If Labour’s motion passes then the government would have to publish the documents, although they may argue they can be redacted for legal reasons or because of commercial sensitivity.
Wasn't it revealed that all the significant communications in the Matt Hancock pub landlord contract were conducted between the two of them via WhatsApp specifically to avoid any scrutiny.
Given this governments aversion to official channels and love of private emails and WhatApp messages I doubt that ministerial communications will reveal much
Which is exactly why they do what they do
Thats is in breach of the ministerial code, obviously, but the idea of this lot caring about that is a rather naive and quaint notion
If she does end up in jail
She was made a conservative life peer, the word here to take note of is 'conservative' Were it liberal dems, labour or any other there might be a chance of holding to account, but conservative means at the very end of whatever happens, she wont be paying any money back and certainly wont be facing any charges.
If conservatives start throwing donors to the wolves, donors are going to think twice about funding them.
Given this governments aversion to official channels and love of private emails and WhatApp messages I doubt that ministerial communications will reveal much
I read that as "pirate emails"...
Thats is in breach of the ministerial code
Not really in place anymore, is it?!? Didn't the last PM effectively bin it?
I read that as “pirate emails”…
Not really in place anymore, is it?!? Didn’t the last PM effectively bin it?
I was thinking it was more of a ministerial suggestion, kind of like the Geneva suggestions.
We need Mr Teatime.
The focus, so far, has been on Mone and Medpro.
Hancock is referring to Mone's aggressive lobbying on behalf of a different and, as yet, un-named company.
How little we still know about what really happened: much more shit to be uncovered yet.
Mone's husband, doug barrowman, is the driving force behind this.
The focus, so far, has been on Mone and Medpro.
They're just a symptom of the problem, the real rot is the government who were happy to divert public funds to friends and family.....
it's an outrageous, immoral, unethical, waste of public funds by some very unpleasant people looking to enrich themselves further to personally benefit from a national and global disaster. But a member of the house of lords benefiting from lobbying government I don't think is an actual criminal offence. Unfortunately.
This has been front of the guardian since middle of last week pretty much, seems to have taken until now for BBC news to pick it up.
They’re just a symptom of the problem, the real rot is the government who were happy to divert public funds to friends and family…..
Might as well start with them and then branch out.
It is fascinating seeing all these cases of people who seemingly at the outset of the pandemic went right to the "ohhh a nice money making opportunity here".
...and as for stepping down to give her more time to hide money?
She last voted in April, and appears to have attended a handful of times a year, making one speech ever, and asking a few questions:
https://members.parliament.uk/member/4544/voting
This is not exactly a punishing workload.
This has been front of the guardian since middle of last week pretty much, seems to have taken until now for BBC news to pick it up.
If you're looking to the BBC to voice perfectly legitimate concerns about Tory corruption then I wouldn't hold your breath. The recently appointed Chairman of the BBC, former Boris Johnson head of communications Richard Sharp, believes the corporation has 'a left-wing liberal bias' that he is there to combat
This is just the latest in a long line of non-reporting from the BBC when it comes to the dodgy crony dealings of the Tory party
https://twitter.com/Parody_PM/status/1599785023984439296?s=20&t=c3szE0OyzOhK-lbqTouidg
Whilst on Leave of Absence she doesn’t have to declare her financial interests – how convenient….
According to this article https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/06/tory-peer-michelle-mone-to-take-leave-of-absence-from-house-of-lords
However, a leave of absence request can be blocked by the Lords’ standards commissioners. The watchdog is already investigating Mone over multiple “potential breaches” of the Lords’ code of conduct.
The code states that if a peer takes a formal break “in order to avoid an impending investigation (or while an investigation is under way), the request may be refused”. If a peer is already on leave of absence when placed under investigation, then that can also be ended immediately.
Though I won't hold my breath.
Would be good to see the House of Lords doing things properly rather than how the House of Commons do and keep shifting goalposts!
The smart thing to do now, if you are someone like Jolyon Maugham, is to put some pressure on Gove. He would throw her under the bus to save his own skin.
As far as GLP is concerned Gove is keeping his head down… 🤣. Worth another tenner i’d otherwise spend on Xmas shit.
https://twitter.com/michaelgove/status/1599071723852275712?s=21&t=C3HtB-M3-ygaUCSW39Zv9g
Mone is morally bankrupt but she wasn't the one signing the contracts... that's the guy who is now throwing her under the bus to promote his own book/tv-career etc... I don't know if I'm more upset that she's swindled the money or despite being so high profile still had the brass neck to offshore trust the money to avoid tax*! Presumably if she takes the fall for this it's because she doesn't have the ability to take anyone else with her, but there are not many angry Glaswegian women who wouldn't lash out in retaliation purely out of spite.
* the fact that there's very little fuss about that suggests its all perfectly legit and so presumably there are countless others smirking at the rest of us for paying tax like fools.
Quoting Busta Rhymes
Even though we getting money, you can (gimme some more)
With the cars and the big crib (gimme some more)
And from the Guardian
A second company that the Tory peer Michelle Mone lobbied ministers over in an attempt to secure government Covid contracts was a secret entity of her husband’s family office, the Guardian can reveal.
The Guardian seem to be doing a sterling job (again) of just playing out enough rope each time for the suspect to hang themselves in increments. In one way it is crazy that the likes of Mone don't seem to see it, but if you've been caught with your fingers in the till there isn't much you can do other than admit it or lie.
I'd like to see/hear what the signatory from the government side has got out of it. You can't corrupt an honest man.
ASTR - the '...good time had by all' is a reliable way of moving on and up.
This has been front of the guardian since middle of last week pretty much, seems to have taken until now for BBC news to pick it up.
It's been on that there Twitter for months. I'm not sure quite why it has taken so long for the MSM to pick it up. Maybe the hush money has started to dry up.
I suspect that up until recently there wasn’t any hard evidence and that it was only the Guardian’s journalists repeated FOI requests that resulted in them being given enough concrete evidence to go public. There were also injunctions in place.
You can either put this down to the ineptitude of some hapless civil servant failing to wield the black pen of redaction enough, unwittingly revealing the information or that there are some grown-ups in Government prepared to stand-up to the corruption. As many of these transactions were conducted on WhatsApp, private emails and a remarkable number of ministers have lost their phones and all records, we may never know the full extent of the lies and corruption. At the time of national crisis the first instincts of ministers is to corruptly divert public funds into the pockets of their cronies and benefactors speaks volumes.
Tory corruption is endemic, I can't believe it was Mone alone.
Of course it is not. Proving that will be the hardest part though; the evidence of personal mail, Whatsapp, osv use for comms all points strongly towards corruption.
Tory corruption is endemic, I can’t believe it was Mone alone.
I imagine her leave of absence will be spent negotiating who she takes dowm with her
I’m sure there’s more…
Gove has been attacking the good law project on twitter, which tells us he is balls deep in the corruption
Tory corruption is endemic, I can’t believe it was Mone alone.
Starmer has to go into the next election with a Day One task of establishing a fast-track investigation into just how much fraud has been perpetrated since 2016 (Track & Trace, PPE, Loans, Russian money etc etc).
The Tory media will go all in, but they will anyway.
At a time of national (global) crisis when a significant number of people are dying and people on very normal wages are turning themselves inside out to try and help; if you are a person of influence or with significant contacts there are two ways to act.
The first is to do what you can to help the cause - pull strings, twist arms, call in favours. Switch factories you control or R&D or logistics teams you run to help out. There might be some small financial reward for this or if you have the means, you might even make a loss to make it happen. That's your contribution to the national situation. Others are putting their very lives on the line, you are are making a valuable contribution in another way.
The second is to look at this as an opportunity to cash in. To strong arm desperate people to give you an excessively lucrative contract. To overegg your capacity to provide what's needed, not because you are so keen to help and are confident you can pull it off but because you are so keen to make the very most of the opportunity you find yourself able to take advantage of.
It is an attitude so far from the national ideal and so corrupting to the concept of national effort that it needs stamping out. Not just to punish the current proponents, but to send a message to generations of lagards to come that this will not be tolerated. Positions of power, such as a life peerage, should come by default with a sense of public duty and service. To allow people like her to leak through the cracks says some fairly terrible things about both the national leadership and those that voted them them in.If you voted tory, you were responsible for putting in power people who valued scum like Mone; you bear some of the responsibility. You are part of the problem.