I thought that, after 40 years in the media, there was very little that could happen which would shock me. Well, I was wrong on that one.
Watching the Laura Kuenssberg interview with Baroness Mone and her husband on Sunday left me literally open-mouthed at almost every word uttered.
For those who missed the interview (and well done, Laura, for refusing to allow the outlandish claims made by this deluded couple to go unchallenged), Baroness Mone finally admitted what everyone has known for months: namely that she lied when she claimed repeatedly she had no connection with PPE Medpro, the company paid more than £200 million by the UK Government to produce masks and gowns during the Covid pandemic.
Quite how an obviously intelligent and extremely successful entrepreneur could rationalise that claim when the company in question is owned by her husband is beyond me, but lie she did.
To make matters worse, she underpinned those lies with threats of legal action when journalists, as journalists will, began to investigate the background to a company which had made some £60 million profit at a time of national emergency by supplying safety equipment – much of it, according to the government, not fit for purpose.
Tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/nSPxpDwUUL
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) December 16, 2023
The whole sorry affair is now the subject of civil litigation launched by the government, and a separate criminal investigation by the National Crime Agency, which effectively prevents detailed discussion of the events leading up to the awarding of the contract and the quality of the equipment supplied. In fairness to Baroness Mone and her husband, Doug Barrowman, they deny claims that the equipment was substandard, and say they have been made scapegoats for flaws in the government’s procurement processes.
A frightening lack of awareness and responsibility
Those legal restrictions do not, however, prevent scrutiny of the Kuenssberg interview, in which Ms Mone (it grates on me continuing to use her Baroness title) asserted that “she had done nothing wrong”, that lying to the media was not a crime, that she only denied involvement to protect her children – the good old Michael Matheson defence, created when his iPad racked up £11,000 of data charges while on holiday with his family – and that the media had ruined her life.
Further, she denied that she had acquired a yacht with the profits from the deal, because it was her husband’s money, not hers, and insisted she would only benefit financially if, God forbid, her husband died before her.
While she is legally and technically correct in stating that lying to the media is not a crime, is she really trying to suggest that makes it OK?
I’m not sure whether Ms Mone actually believes the things she was saying – but, if she does, it demonstrates a frightening lack of awareness and personal responsibility. To try to sustain an argument that, somehow, money and personal belongings accrued by her husband do not in any way benefit her and her children is simply laughable.
And, while she is legally and technically correct in stating that lying to the media is not a crime, is she really trying to suggest that makes it OK? She is old enough, and should be wise enough, to know that lying to the media is not illegal, but is assuredly a shortcut to being found out.
Mone has no one to blame but herself
Although I may have provided powerful evidence to the contrary, journalists are not stupid, and generally only ask searching questions when they already know the answer. Thus, when Ms Mone asserted, time and again, that she had no links to PPE Medpro, she was slowly but surely signing her own political and professional death warrant. Rather than blaming the media for her spectacular fall from grace, she should acknowledge that she has no one to blame but herself.
Ms Mone has taken leave of absence from the House of Lords for the past year, and is no longer a member of the Conservative Party. Several senior politicians have gone on record suggesting that she should never return to the Upper House.
Even if she is permanently banned from the Lords, she will retain the Baroness title, unless some obscure law passed during the First World War is enacted to strip her of it.
If she hopes to retain a shred of credibility after this, she should immediately do three things: announce that she and her husband will return most of the profits from the contract to the UK’s taxpayers, voluntarily surrender her title, and sever her links with the media advisors who told her that taking part in the Kuenssberg interview was the right thing to do. Anything less than that, and she will be forever tainted.
Derek Tucker is a former editor of The Press and Journal
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