Michelle ! Mone !

Crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/09/revealed-the-full-inside-story-of-the-michelle-mone-ppe-scandal

No question about it. I read that & came here to say the same thing.

‘Southern Europe’, any guesses?

My money is on her relocating somewhere hot ‘for the safety of her family’ that just happens to not have an extradition treaty with UK.

And the firesale of assets will undoubtedly head to some suitable offshore account, family trust fund etc, so no recovery is possible.

‘Southern Europe’, any guesses?

Suggestions on Twitter is Northern Cyprus which has no extradition treaty with the UK

What do the authorities need to prove to label her a ‘flight risk’?

“Goin’ down like BHS”
(courtesy Jason Williamson)

Interesting, maybe she’s been told you can leg it and keep the dosh as long as you take no-one else down with you.

She could always do the Robert Maxwell exit.

You don’t write that Guardian story unless you are VERY sure of your facts. That civil servants appear duty bound to leak solid info speaks volumes to the seriousness of the accusations.

Yeah definitely agree the latest Guardian article speaks assuredness. And that’s before the final line…

A lawyer who represents Barrowman and PPE Medpro said “For the time being we are also instructed to say that there is much inaccuracy in the portrayal of the alleged ‘facts’ and a number of them are completely wrong.”

The Guardian stands by its reporting.

If she legs it, she will still be OK to sneak back into the country via Biggin Hill. Just not too often and don’t make it obvious. 🙄

@convert although your post that I’ve quoted below is now three days old, I really think it deserves a second read by anyone interested in this. I absolutely agree with everything you wrote.

Private Eye has been banging the drum about this for nearly two years now. There are so many points over the last decade that I’ve thought corruption and lies have become commonplace, but the VIP/fastlane PPE procurement process seems the most blatant.

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.

Crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

One thing we can rely on about her is she is very very economical when it comes to truth. They say you can tell when a politician is lying by the fact their lips are moving. This is doubly so with Michelle Mone

the national ideal

Not sure we’ve got one. Lots of people seem to think it is hanging on on the ropes in a world war until the US can be dragged in on our side.

Positions of power, such as a life peerage, should come by default with a sense of public duty and service.

Crook will always look to ways to make crooking easier.

This stuff shouldn’t and cannot be left to conscience because enough people would rather fill their pockets than serve the common good. Mone is liquidating her assets as we speak. Right now. They’ve embezzled £60m between them if I’ve read it right. Even if their fire sale ‘only’ raises £30m that is more than enough to live on for the rest of their lives. Their assets should be frozen right now. But they won’t be because Gove is up to his nuts in this. She’s going to leg it to a safe haven from where she is going to laugh at every one of us.

she is going to laugh at every one of us

Or, given her massive sense of entitlement, nurse a ludicrous grievance due to our lack of gratitude.

Northern Cyprus

Oooo yeah it’s full of expats that have had financial difficulties. Like a pool full of sharks!

Beautiful place with little to no crime despite being lightly policed. Not sure exactly how many troops the Turks have stationed there but there’s barracks everywhere!

If things don’t work out, she could get a job at Hooters…

I bet like everything else about her they are false

Mone is just the tip of the iceberg

Exclusive: A couple whose firm won £2bn in PPE deals — biggest of the pandemic — have off-shored their wealth. They won't disclose profits or tax on their Covid-19 windfall

Sarah/Richard Stoute bought £6m mansion, £30m Carribean villa, took firm to Jersey https://t.co/1vV2BTpdAM pic.twitter.com/eZI7esxhRF

— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) December 11, 2022

The VIP lanes were nothing more than a massive get rich quick scheme for the Tory cronies and donors. Most likely they expected the ordinary public to be simple enough to believe them, grateful to be alive, and cheer them from the roadsides like returning WW2 heroes.

The reality is that a framework agreement with fixed profit margins is a standard operating model in NHS procurement, All these patriotic folks could have bid against that, but they wouldn’t have. Because there’s no fat profit for little effort in there, and appropriate contractual scrutiny is applied.

So we have a VIP system created with significant (but not universally applied) barriers to entry, no regulation, lax contract rules, and open ended profit margins. It’s what you do if you want to fraudulently benefit your mates.

Mone and her ilk will all get away with this. They didn’t abuse the system that was created as it operated exactly as intended.

Came here to post the same Times link… At least £1 in every £7 the government spent on PPE isn’t suitable for use.

https://archive.vn/OgYAW

Hot off the press – government suing PPE Medpro for £122 million.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-64029040

Good news but it concerns the technicalities of gown specification and not (I fear) the root of the problem which is unqualified organisations gaining contracts unfairly, nor it’s consequences of vast and unreasonable profits being siphoned off for personal gain.

Still if it spoils her and her husband’s day and recovers some of my PAYE, I’m all for it. She’s still got to go down though, taking some other Tory scum with her.

As anyone involved with Government procurement knows, the contracts are typically inflexible, fixed margins and terms with no room for negotiation by the commercial officers as they don’t have the authority even on multi-million pound contracts. Clearly, the VIP lane was created to circumvent these rules, Ministers given the authority under emergency powers and basically help their mates and donors.

Hot off the press – government suing PPE Medpro for £122 million.

Note, suing the “company” – hint, the “company” will fold, if it’s not folded already.

Fair comment ^^^ but I see it as guilt by association.

Unfortunately ‘Guilt by Association’ butters no parsnips these days. These people are truly shameless and will simply shrug this off as what happens in business. They will move to some sun drenched island and live off our millions tax free with impunity. Mone may well be chucked out of the Lords but what does she care now, her position has already served its purpose – its not like she ever contributed or really wanted to be there anyway.

Scum the lot of them but in todays society scum rises.

^^^^

100% this.

The postwar settlement is dwindling fast – the whole point of this latest breed of Tories is to accelerate an unruly break-up so they can sequester the best bits, gut them and ride off into the sunset. All the while waving a flag and talking about Our British This and Our British That to keep the plebs happy, obvs.

The good law project continuing the good fight.

REVEALED: The names of those who referred Covid testing firms into the “VIP” lane

The postwar settlement is dwindling fast

This absolutely boils my piss, while they drape themselves in flags and extoll their lies about “what our brave lads fought for” it actually bears no resemblance to historical accuracy. The post war social contract was the honoring of the sacrifices made by that generation, tearing it up now is just shitting on their bravery and courage.

Has she legged it yet?

Why has the government not fallen? This is worse than the expenses scandal IMO.

Wouldn’t surprise me if barrowman was assessing whether she has any future value for him before deciding whether or not to ditch her.

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.

Maybe a job for a small team of those nice chaps based in the Hereford area? The rich need to become respectful of the poor again. Back in the very old days workers would beat their factory owner to death and then they banded into unions to be more civilised and negotiate. Seems we may need a short period of the very old days to remind some where their responsibilities lay.

This absolutely boils my piss, while they drape themselves in flags and extoll their lies about “what our brave lads fought for” it actually bears no resemblance to historical accuracy.

The absolute epitome of this is the notion that WWI was fought for freedom and democracy.

Germany had better welfare provision and a much more democratic franchise than the UK during WWI. Uneducated men weren’t even allowed to vote in the UK until 1918 and educated women were only allowed to vote from 1916.

Democracy my arse.

Why has the government not fallen? This is worse than the expenses scandal IMO.

Agreed

When does the government have to publish this stuff then? After an election? After the press have told us everything anyway? Or is it imminent and the impetus for today’s news…?

https://news.sky.com/story/ppe-contract-documents-will-be-published-by-government-but-not-until-after-probes-end-12762913

The government has agreed to publish documents relating to £200m of personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts given to a company that has been linked to a Conservative peer – but not until probes into the firm have completed.

Labour brought a binding vote to the Commons on Tuesday, demanding “all papers, advice, and correspondence” about contracts given to PPE Medpro to be handed over to the Commons’ Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The party’s deputy leader Anglea Rayner said it was time to “end the cover-up and begin the clean-up”, adding: “A vote for this motion is a vote in favour of the truth.”

Health minister Will Quince said the government was “committed to releasing information” and the motion passed without a vote.

But he told the Commons it would only be delivered when all investigations into the contracts were concluded, promising Cabinet Office minister Oliver Dowden would contact the chair of the PAC “soon” about “information sharing arrangements”.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/06/michelle-mone-admits-involvement-with-vip-lane-ppe-company

The Conservative peer Michelle Mone has acknowledged for the first time that she was involved with a company that was awarded government PPE contracts worth £200m during the Covid pandemic.

Lady Mone’s husband, Douglas Barrowman, has also acknowledged for the first time that he was involved in the company, PPE Medpro.

A representative of Barrowman told the Guardian that the Isle of Man-based businessman was an investor in PPE Medpro, and chaired and led the operation to supply personal protective equipment.

Even if they do publishe it they won’t do anything and nothing will happen. Couple of days in the press before the Tory supporters decide their readers ar more interested in some celebrity gossip or boat people

PPE Medpro

Incorporated(formed) 12 may, 2020

Now isn’t that a coincidence. Just as theres a need for ppe, a company forms and on June 26th 2020 is awarded a £203m contract.