Did underwear peer really make £65m from Covid contract corruption?
Accused: Lady Mone.
How low can our politicians go?
Just at the moment, there’s a very low bar to limbo under – but it seems former Ultimo underwear boss turned Tory peer Michelle Mone may have managed it.
The allegation in The Guardian is that, while the rest of us laboured under lockdown, desperate to keep ourselves and our relatives alive, Lady Mone was making £65 million from a Personal Protective Equipment manufacturer in thanks for her recommending its products in the “VIP lane” for firms fast-tracked by politicians or officials.
Not only has the “VIP lane” since been branded illegal, but it has been claimed that much of the gear from PPE Medpro didn’t meet the standard.
It was suggested that…
Michelle Mone, a Tory peer, her husband, Douglas Barrowman, and her children secretly received £65m originating from the profits of PPE Medpro, a company that was awarded large government contracts during the pandemic after she recommended it to ministers.
The government lubricated such questionable deal-making by setting up a “VIP lane” into which suppliers recommended by politicians or officials were fast-tracked.
PPE Medpro’s business was referred to the VIP lane after Lady Mone contacted the ministers Michael Gove and Lord Agnew to offer help in May 2020. A few weeks later, the government contracted to pay the firm £203m for protective equipment for the NHS.
A court later said that the VIP lane was unlawful. Perhaps worse, it was ineffective. The government is now in dispute over millions of surgical gowns supplied by PPE Medpro that it says were not up to scratch. PPE Medpro insists its products passed inspections.
Lady Mone… denies becoming fantastically rich by profiting from a company she lobbied to be awarded state contracts.
But she is also
being investigated by the Lords commissioner for standards after being accused of failing to declare an interest in PPE Medpro.
The Guardian, outraged, claims that peerages should not be a means to personal or ideological ends.
But isn’t that the best that can be said of almost any UK politician these days?
They all seem to be on the take and for many, it seems, that is the only point of being in Westminster at all.
It isn’t many years since it was possible to discuss genuine political theory when examining politicians’ behaviour – but now all we see is avarice.
Too many have been caught lobbying for the firms that gave them their second or third job, or using their position to rig the rules in their own fields of business, or seen to have set themselves up for high-paid jobs after leaving Parliament. Haven’t they?
Sadly, we don’t have a way of looking into candidates’ minds before they get elected into their Commons seats, to detect the corruption before it can do its worst.
So, what is the solution to the rot that’s making Parliament reek?
Source: The Guardian view on crony capitalism: a moral corruption stalks parliament
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Yes and she should be jailed for lying about her involvement
Why aren’t these corrupt politicians nd their corrupt business cronies arrested for theft, fraud and corruption? The evidence is blatantly there for all to see! Why aren’t these corrupt MPs and their corrupt business cronies held to account? Are they truly above the law!!!
Why are these sick and corrupt people above the law? Why are they not being arrested, charged, prosecuted and imprisoned?
Parliament is now a cess pit of systemic corruption, fraud and blatant greed. For more than 10 years the fascist tories have been in political power and they are the ones responsible for creating their greedy corrupt rotten system! Reminds of the Rotten Boroughs wherein males were elected MPs solely so they could enrich themselves because these so-called ‘constituencies’ comprised a minute number of men eligible to vote so thereby enabling corrupt male MPs to be elected.
Michelle Mone is not the only greedy corrupt fascist tory supporter who has enriched herself by stealing our public money. Many other greedy fascist tory supporters have also profited by the pandemic.
So what is to be done – a clean sweep of all the rotten MPs for a start with a ban of all MPs having a second job as well as their main one (hahah!) being an MP. Next real legislation which would criminalise all acts of corruption whether it emanates from the (fake) Prime Minister to a minor MP.. All must be held to the same standard but there are too many ‘loopholes’; and the powerful fascist tories are the ones ensuring their corruption and fraud are not being investigated.
Corruption starts at the top and quickly becomes the norm – so it is with the rotten greedy, corrupt ‘fascist tory scroungers!’
The real ‘scroungers’ aren’t impoverished women and men but the greedy money obsessed corrupt rotten fascist tories!