Tag Archives: Lady

Will you sign the petition to have Michelle Mone ejected from the Lords?

Petition: Lady Mone.

This should be a no-brainer for everyone who opposes Conservative Parliamentarians being on the take:

The petition states:

The Guardian newspaper reports Conservative peer “Michelle Mone and her children secretly received £29m originating from the profits of a PPE business that was awarded large government contracts after she recommended it to ministers.” Isolation gowns provided by the business were deemed unfit for use, all while our NHS heroes were putting their lives on the line – including by wearing DIY PPE to protect themselves and the public.

We – the undersigned – are calling on the Commissioner for Standards to conclude the investigation into Michelle Mone as soon as is possible. Mone disputes the Guardian’s allegations, but if she is found to have done what is reported, she should be expelled from the House of Lords and made to pay back every penny in profit to taxpayers.

Personally, I’d also include any interest earned on it while it was in her family’s bank accounts.

Are you going to sign?

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Firm implicated in ‘Lady Mone’ PPE scandal is being sued by the Tory government

Referrer: Lady Mone.

The Tory government is suing the company that Baroness Michelle Mone recommended to it as a supplier of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) during the Covid crisis – for £122 million.

PPE Medpro won contracts through the government’s so-called VIP lane in 2020 after being recommended by Baroness Mone.

But the government is now trying to get its money back on one of the deals – to supply medical gowns – through the High Court.

It has been claimed that Mone’s recommendation was duff because the equipment provided was substandard, but PPE Medpro has denied any failings on its part, saying that it supplied its gowns to the correct specification, on time and at a highly competitive price.

Instead, it was the Department of Health and Social Care that acted incompetently, by failing to correctly specify and procure the PPE it needed during the crisis – according to the company.

But how will this affect the allegations against Baroness Mone?

She is currently on a leave of absence from the Lords – and suspended as a member of the Tories – after it was alleged that she had recommended PPE Medpro as a supplier, and then taken a payment of £29 million from the firm.

Will the allegations against her be affected, depending on what the High Court decides?

This Writer thinks not.

The question hanging over the former underwear magnate concerns whether she took money from the firm after lobbying on its behalf, which is not permitted according to Parliamentary rules.

The quality of the equipment, and the robustness of the contract under which it was supplied, would be irrelevant to that – although…

They would weigh heavily on public opinion of the Lady in question.

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Should the Royal Household take anti-racism training from the charity whose boss it abused?

As This Writer suggested in a previous article:

Mandu Reid, the leader of the Women’s Equality Party, has told Sky News that Meghan Markle’s claims of racism within the royal household have been “validated”.

It comes after Lady Susan Hussey, the godmother of Prince William, asked charity boss Ngozi Fulani at Buckingham Palace “what part of Africa are you from?”.

I really like the moment in this clip in which Ms Reid said she didn’t want Lady Hussey to step down, but to step up – acknowledge that racism exists in the Royal Household and that they will take steps to remove it.

Perhaps they could start by taking training from Sistah Space, the charity to which Ms Fulani belongs. It’s what that organisation does.

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Palace race incident was at supposed ‘safe space’ event

Charitable: Ngozi Fulani has said she would not like to see Lady Susan Hussey “vilified” because of her ill-chosen words.

At first, I thought this was a story about Prince Harry’s wife Meghan, and in a way it is.

She denounced racism in the Royal Household some time ago. I seem to recall she took a lot of stick for it – but now it seems she is vindicated after a charity representative from an ethnic minority was repeatedly asked where she was “really” from, by Prince William’s godmother.

Lady Susan Hussey, resigned after she repeatedly asked that question of Ngozi Fulani, a black British charity boss, at an event to support the Queen Consort’s campaign against domestic violence at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday (November 29).

Ms Fulani recounted how said Lady Hussey, 83, approached her and moved her hair to one side to allow her to read her name tag – which some might say was already extremely presumptuous; high-handed.

Then – well, here’s Ms Fulani’s own account:

Lady SH: Where are you from?
Me: Sistah Space.
SH: No, where do you come from?
Me: We’re based in Hackney.
SH: No, what part of Africa are YOU from?
Me: I don’t know, they didn’t leave any records.
SH: Well, you must know where you’re from. I spent time in France. Where are you from?
Me: Here, UK.
SH: No, but what Nationality are you?
Me: I am born here and am British.
SH: No, but where do you really come from, where do your people come from?
Me: ‘My people’? Lady, what is this?
SH: Oh I can see I am going to have a challenge getting you to say where you’re from. When did you first come here?
Me: Lady! I am a British national, my parents came here in the 50s when-
SH: Oh, I knew we’d get there in the end. You’re Caribbean!
Me: No, lady, I am of African heritage, Caribbean descent and British nationality.
SH: Oh, so you’re from…

Ms Fulani said she believed the member of the Royal Household was trying to make her denounce her British citizenship, and the incident had led her to question how a situation like this could happen in a space “supposed to protect women against all kinds of violence”.

She said: “Although it’s not physical violence, it is an abuse.”

She added, charitably, that she did not want to see Lady Hussey “vilified” over her behaviour.

But that was always going to happen, I think – especially after some ill-advised Royal supporters chipped in to support Lady Hussey with the excuse that “she’s 83”:

George Stephens’s point is extremely strong – if also strongly-worded.

This Writer’s mother is of the same generation and would never treat another person in such a way. It simply would not occur to her.

I would say it was people of the generation before hers who may have displayed casual racism because they didn’t know any better. Most of them have passed away and that kind of behaviour should have passed with them.

If members of the Royal Household are displaying such traits, then it raises serious questions about standards there.

If I were from an ethnic minority, or an organisation that includes ethnic minorities in any way, I would certainly be having second thoughts about attending any Royal event in the future.

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This former Commons speaker can still put a prime minister firmly in his place

This clip speaks for itself.

Former Commons Speaker Lady (Betty Boothroyd), speaking in today’s (October 19) Lords debate on how badly Boris Johnson has cocked up the UK’s departure from the European Union, said the following:

“Never in my Parliamentary experience have I witnessed such a collapse in the people’s trust.”

That is a warning.

Johnson will be too stupid – or too selfish – to take it.

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Labour lords’ ‘no confidence’ threat to Corbyn is shooting themselves in the foot

Anti-Semitic: Lady Hayter.

Whoever thought it would be a good idea for Labour lords to hold a vote of ‘no confidence’ (VONC) in Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership over his handling of anti-Semitism – after he sacked one of them for a blatantly anti-Semitic comment – needs to think again, sharpish.

Lady Dianne Hayter (phonetically-speaking, she is well-named), lost her shadow cabinet post after she compared Mr Corbyn’s leadership to the “bunker mentality” in the “last days of Hitler”.

This clearly an anti-Semitic attack on Jewish members who work for the Labour leadership.

A Labour spokesman said: “To compare the Labour leader and Labour party staff working to elect a Labour government to the Nazi regime is truly contemptible, and grossly insensitive to Jewish staff in particular.” Quite right.

It seems Lady Hayter made her comments in a meeting of Corbyn-hating right-wing subgroup Labour First, on Tuesday.

Now it seems the Labour lords may hold a VONC in Mr Corbyn. It would be nothing more than a statement of opinion – there could be no pressure on Mr Corbyn to resign.

But it seems the ringleaders haven’t considered what they are really saying in supporting an anti-Semite and attacking a move against her.

They’re effectively saying: “We, the Labour lords supporting a ‘no confidence’ vote, are all anti-Semites and we are attacking Mr Corbyn in bad faith.”

In Westminster-speak, the “optics” of this are terrible.

Mr Corbyn is unlikely to take immediate action. But some of us will expect plans for any future Labour government to change the second chamber of Parliament radically.

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Incontinent cancer survivor forced to “re-use baby nappies” is a sign of Tory-run DWP *success*

The estimable Peter Stefanovic has suggested that “when Benefit cuts force an incontinent cancer survivor to ‘re-use nappies’ you know the system is failing on an industrial scale”.

This Writer begs to differ.

The system is doing exactly what the Conservatives want.

The lady Mr Field mentions has been targeted very specifically by the Tory-run Department for Work and Pensions.

The idea was to deprive her of her benefits in order to put this lady under increased levels of stress; the hope was that this would push her towards suicide – or simply kill her off by boosting the level of her illness.

It’s ‘nudge’ theory in action, as the Conservatives practise it.

Obviously, with Frank Field raising the issue in Parliament, the Tories have had to say that something has gone wrong with this lady’s benefit claim.

This is only true if you accept that what went wrong, as far as the Tories are concerned, was the case being publicised by a Labour MP.

Now they can’t get away with it and must actually lift a finger to help this woman instead. They won’t have liked that at all.

This is just the latest in a long series of cases in which the Tories have cut off benefits to individuals. Some of the people they targeted have died as a result.

If these incidents really did represent the system going wrong, then the Tories would have fixed it by now. They haven’t.

The system hasn’t gone wrong.

It is doing exactly what the Tories want.

And it will continue doing so until the Tories are forcibly removed from office.

Spread the word.

A Wirral woman left incontinent by cancer was forced to re-use babies’ nappies after benefit cuts left her penniless, an MP claimed.

The Birkenhead woman, in her 50s, could not even afford adult nappies – and was too ashamed to ask for new ones from a local charity, according to Labour MP Frank Field.

She was reportedly stripped of disability benefit a few weeks ago after assessors said she was not sick enough to receive it in a controversial welfare test.

A government minister admitted “clearly something went wrong” in her assessment after the harrowing story was raised in Parliament, and she has appealed the decision.

Source: Benefit cuts force incontinent cancer survivor to “re-use baby nappies after being left penniless” – Liverpool Echo

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Butler-Sloss quits child abuse inquiry – under pressure from SOCIAL media?

Resigned: Baroness Butler-Sloss.

Resigned: Baroness Butler-Sloss.

Would anybody argue with the suggestion that the social media – including blogs like Vox Political – played the largest part in the removal of Baroness Butler-Sloss from the government’s inquiry into historical child sex abuse investigations?

Until yesterday, Lady Butler-Sloss was adamant that there was no reason she could not head up the inquiry, even though her past associations with people she might have to investigate included her own brother, the late Sir Michael Havers, who was attorney general in the 1980s.

It was the social media that found this information and revealed it to the general public – who then complained bitterly to the government.

Do we believe Lady Butler-Sloss where she tells us she “did not sufficiently consider” whether her family links would throw the inquiry into question? It seems extremely out-of-character for a former judge, who would never – for example – have allowed a trial jury to include a relative of the defendant, to claim that she could be impartial about matters involving her own family. It was a clear conflict of interest.

One point that has been glossed-over is the fact that this woman is nearly 81 years of age and from the same privileged background as many of the people she would be asked to investigate. Did she even have the necessary sensibilities – or even the ability to open her mind to current thinking – required to head up an investigation such as this?

Of course, Lady Butler-Sloss was appointed by the Home Secretary, Theresa May. She has been accused of failure to carry out “due diligence” – the necessary checks to discover if a candidate can be relied upon to be impartial – but has defiantly claimed that her choice was good.

“I do not regret the decision I made. I continue to believe that Elizabeth Butler-Sloss would have done an excellent job as chair of this inquiry,” she told the Home Affairs select committee. Really? Excellent by whose standards?

We know from Lord Tebbit that there was a ‘hush-hush’ culture in the Thatcher government of the 1980s. He said people thought the establishment “had to be protected”.

Then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – who herself spent a great deal of time with serial child abuser Jimmy Savile – is now seen to have turned ‘Nelson’s Eye’ towards such accusations – the same eye with which he was able to make the claim, “I see no ships”. The eyes of history are likely to take a dim view of such blindness.

And of course the attitude she held is likely to pervade government even now, 30 years later. Perhaps Theresa May wanted this inquiry – which she had resisted for a long time – to be headed by a person who could be trusted not to rock the boat. Perhaps she had been told to select such a person.

Now we must wait for an announcement on a new chairperson. This also plays into the hands of those with skeletons (or worse) in their closets as it creates a delay.

Not only that, but we must all remain vigilant against the possibility that May will appoint another dud. The BBC’s report makes it clear that the requirement for a candidate to have a legal background and the security clearance necessary to be able to read confidential papers means it is hard to find anyone who is suitably qualified and is not part of the establishment.

We still do not know where this will lead and who will be implicated. People like Theresa May and David Cameron will want to protect members of their own Old Guard from retrospective vilification (if Lord Tebbit’s words are to be trusted), and it seems likely they will do everything in their considerable power to fob us off.

It is our responsibility to make sure they don’t.

Follow me on Twitter: @MidWalesMike

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