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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.
Harsh but fair.
I do agree that a few took advantage of the many, at a time of a global and national emergency. And I do think they should feel the weight of the law and be taken to the appropriate court to see justice served.
I think she is not part of the boys club so is being used as a sacrifice to protect others. They will offer her up to protect others.
As OP said "corruption is endemic".
All I know is I isolated, I wore a mask, I didn't go out more than allowed and I did my best to support all the NHS workers in my family. I think I will have to be content with that as there will not be any justice for those who profiteered during this time.
Just read her wikki entry, if all is to believed she really isn't someone who should be titled is she? I mean weight loss pills, crypto currency, fake tans....
Get some real anger in this country against these crooks.
Just read her wikki entry, if all is to believed she really isn’t someone who should be titled is she?
Grant Shapps is in the Cabinet. Grant! Shapps! Secretary of State for Business! He's a conman who stayed "just" the right side of the law while diddling people out of their money. The Conservative Party do not care how you make your money. The dodgier your business the better.
Clearly this place is not as sophisticated as I thought and the (obtuse) reference to Rasputin, the poster boy for those circling people in power for personal gain, passed most by. Oh well.
I'd like to think there will be legitimate and legal consequence for the likes of Mone - but I'm not holding my breath. There was a reason Rasputin ended up as he did....
It's also well worth bearing in mind that:
a) the goods her company supplied were sub-standard and didn't meet the required specification; they remain stacked in a warehouse in China that we're still collectively paying to rent; and
b) the normal profit margins on PPE for established supply chains are really quite small, often in single figures of %.
In this deal, Barrowman & Mone cleared over £65m profit on a contract of £203m;
c) the profits have been diverted away from UK taxation through the vehicle of an offshore trust and then 'lent' back to the family.
Morally repugnant, at every stage, before even considering the corrupt methods used to secure the contract in the first place.
Imagine she happened to be a gay, black Labour peer.
a) the goods her company supplied were sub-standard and didn’t meet the required specification; they remain stacked in a warehouse in China that we’re still collectively paying to rent; and
I read the goods met the standard in the contract.
The contract didn't meet appropriate NHS standards. And any decent PPE company and procurement person would have known this.
Pedantic I know, but it shows the general issues that existed.
I think a more fitting punishment would be for them to live out the rest of their lives at the sharp end of what they have created through their policies and behaviour.
So they will be condemned to see out their remaining days in a cold, damp flat in a tower block with flammable cladding in the worst sink estate in the country, send their kids to the local comprehensive, use the local NHS, public transport and public sector services and their only income will be Universal Credit, which will be sanctioned at the drop of a hat by the DWP should they fail to meet all the criteria, leaving them dependent on food banks.
Rees Mogg living out his life like this, with or without his nanny, would be particularly satisfying to watch, given how he described food banks...
Lets see how 'uplifting' he'd find the reality
I've heard that Mone was pushing for existing PPE suppliers to be excluded from the VIP lane. I heard this first hand from a fairly senior employee of one such firm. Common interest, my arse.
I sincerely hope that makes its way into any investigation.
The priority has to be to get Mone to lie under oath.
I think she is not part of the boys club so is being used as a sacrifice to protect others.
I don't think you should be gendering it (if that's what you meant).
She's going down because she's expendable and has no role in the current administration.
And she appears to be bang-to-rights anyway.
I’ve heard that Mone was pushing for existing PPE suppliers to be excluded from the VIP lane. I heard this first hand from a fairly senior employee of one such firm.
I know a certain PPE supplier, one of the biggest, benefitted from additional (Govt) demand in the first year of COVID to the tune of 2% of the Medpro contracts, so that sounds quite plausible.
At least the PPE didn't get over here and we'd have to pay The French to burn it.
Yeah, but Mone pushing for exclusivity puts an end to the defence that "we were just trying to lay our hands on every available bit of PPE". That's the current lie being parroted by every hapless junior minister being wheeled out to perjure themselves for Gove/Mone.
I think she is not part of the boys club so is being used as a sacrifice to protect others.
Her husband is very much one of the boys. Investment fund, commercial property development and private equity bod who'll have been balls deep in the Tory party even without his wife.
The whole point of the 'VIP lane' was funnelling billions of taxpayers money into the pockets of their mates. You won't have stood a chance of getting on 'the list' unless you were seriously connected with Boris and chums at the top of the Tory Party
This will all quietly melt away and she'll resume her place in the Lords.
Does anyone seriously believe there is any price to be paid by any of this lot? Boris has caused enormous damage to this country and just wandered off to make his millions. And just look at Truss FFS. She did more damage in 45 days than a hostile foreign power could do if it declared war on us, then she just resigns and totters off back to the backbenches with £120,000 a year off the taxpayer for life and doubtless a shitload of highly paid consultancies. Rishi, when he was chancellor, casually wrote off the billions corruptly dished out to his mates with the stroke of a pen and not a second thought, and he's now PM
The present UK political system is now just a gravy train for a bunch of completely corrupt and morally bankrupt carpetbaggers who have spent the last 12 years ever more brazenly asset stripping the state
Can you imagine getting to the point in life where you say to yourself, 'do you know, I think I'm going to take some of my hard-earned money and spend it on Matt Hancock's new book'.
No action has been taken against her by the Conservative Party, despite what our current lying PM said today at PMQs…
https://twitter.com/pippacrerar/status/1600478051858493440?s=21
[ the opposite of the Matt Hancock story ]
This bloke has a fairly sensible attitude to it.
Lost the Whip, but the furry handcuffs are on the bedside table.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63888582
I'm sure like me there's plenty of us on here in jobs that require us to do annual anti-corruption training.
The examples in the training are always along the lines of
"Bob flies to South America to pitch to a potential new client"
Or
"Bob is trying to win a new client in Africa"
The level of corruption and cronyism right here on our doorstep would put any dodgy south American or African official to shame.
This lot are absolute crooks.
I think it's briliant that we can talk about the abuse of power on internet forums.
It's just a shame that the HOC and the HOL are unable to have such open conversations.
It happens in the select committees.
Can you imagine getting to the point in life where you say to yourself, ‘do you know, I think I’m going to take some of my hard-earned money and spend it on Matt Hancock’s new book’.
Yes I actually can, his book would be a good fire starter, lest ye have any better kindling?
Mone hasn't made an appearance in the HoL for eight months. Why is she in ermine?
OH my days, I just read her Wiki entry, unreal? Just mind boggling!
Tory corruption is endemic, I can’t believe it was Mone alone.
I think I am correct to say that not a single opposition MP managed to get a local contract through the VIP fast lane, the only beneficiaries were those who were referred by their Tory MP mates. The corruption was so blatant.
I think Mone will lose her place in the Lords over lying about whether or not she profited (she did lie, she did profit). That will be seen as the end of the matter and everything else will be forgotten about, despite the bigger crime being corruption..
Edit - I also just read her Wiki. She has been very busy lady being do dishonest, corrupt, racist and just downright nasty.
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.
I assume you mean the civil servants in gov who signed it off? I had the joy of working with some of them during this:
1. There were a lot of contract staff from consultancy firms getting paid big bucks to find ways to make normally slow processes move quicker
2. there was a lot of changes of people - it wasn’t uncommon to have a teams meeting on consecutive days and people to have suddenly left the project to work on some other scheme
3. ultimately the civil servants are there to advise ministers but it’s ministers who sign it off.
4. they were clearly under horrendous pressure from ministers to find solutions, to get shit done, and to ensure public perception was we are solving the crisis
5. At the very senior level there were implications (amongst their more junior staff) that playing nice with gov spin would likely lead to a gong. Actually the person I most heard that about I don’t think was rewarded in the end?
6. Ultimately civil servants have mortgages to pay, mouths to feed etc. whistleblowing is a high risk strategy that could end a career and lucrative pension.
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">7. when people did leave, their replacements were often more consultants/contractor types rather than established civil servants and so less likely to be resistive. If you wanted scrutiny and accountability it might be better to stay than open the door to another grad scheme project manager trying to climb the greasy pole by saying the right things.</span>
so, I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of the civ servants who will have been involved in approving these things were not directly benefiting - but I’ve little doubt they were being bullied from the top. I have zero respect for anyone in that cabinet but let’s just remember that their urgency to finding any PPE from anywhere at any cost was also driven by media hysteria.
to me it’s interesting that Michelle Mones emails made it to the diaries, not because they were written or that outrageous (if she actually believed that she had access to product the gov needed and beaurocrats were the barrier she rather unsubtle did what we might have expected). You see there are plenty of other such messages which also got sent to ministers saying “why are you ignoring X” or “how do we get you to consider Y” which didn’t seem to cause any stress. He (or his assistants) clearly felt that Mones messages deserved more of his attention - so I suspect his concern was not about the written messages but rather about the phone call he’d have got that has no record! Assuming his diary was written contemporaneously and he’s not just edited it to reflect on the “winners” from the deal.
Interesting, thanks for sharing!
But that's exactly it. Government should be the grown ups and should make the hard choices for the good of the country. This"optics" is bullshit and short termism. Because how many times does the good quick thing turn into a long term expensive mess?
Would the delays have been easy? No. But a few days more of scrutiny might have lead to usable kit arriving. As opposed to non-usable kit arriving a few days sooner. Reputable suppliers telling the truth and giving actual lead times as opposed to profiteers with no background promising the earth at a cost.
I was lead manager for supply and distribution of PPE for social care in my region throughout the pandemic, in that respect I was involved in a lot of the national decision making and was a member of national working groups, in particular those involved in distribution to local areas. Although we purchased most of our own PPE in social care, we also drew down stock from Scottish Government. It was hard work, very fraught at times, terrifyingly close to failure but it worked, just. No-one in my area ever went without the PPE they needed. So PPE provision in Scotland was managed well without the need to award multi million pound contracts to Tory mates. When the Tories say it was a crisis and they had to tear up the rule book, it is worth asking how other countries, including Scotland, managed to do exactly that but without the obvious, widespread corruption.
. There was a reason Rasputin ended up as he did….
as Russia’s greatest sex machine?
Reading the wiki page on her, she sounds like a right peice of work.
Does anyone think there's a chance she'll do time?
Does anyone think there’s a chance she’ll do time?
No.
The Tories will probably try to get her canonised next.