Corrupt and racist? Front page news twice today
Leaked files appear to suggest the Conservative peer Michelle Mone and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, were secretly involved in a PPE business that was awarded more than £200m in government contracts after she referred it to the Cabinet Office.
Barrowman, an Isle of Man-based financier, may have played a central role in the business deal that enabled PPE Medpro to sell millions of masks and surgical gowns to the government at the start of the pandemic, documents suggest.
One person closely involved in PPE Medpro claimed Barrowman was “part of the financial consortium that backed” the company and was even involved in initial conversations with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
Documents seen by the Guardian suggest he and Lady Mone were kept informed of specific commercial arrangements about PPE Medpro’s supplies. And Mone appears to have sent messages to an individual in PPE Medpro’s supply chain about the contract to supply gowns.
The couple’s apparent involvement in the business activities of PPE Medpro, which was fast-tracked through the government’s “VIP lane” after Mone’s referral, will reignite controversy over Tory-linked firms profiting from government contracts during the pandemic. It will also raise questions about repeated attempts by Mone and Barrowman to distance themselves from PPE Medpro.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ment-contracts
and this
The Conservative peer Michelle Mone is being investigated by the Metropolitan police for an allegedly racist message she is accused of sending to a man of Indian heritage.
The recipient of the message, Richard Lynton-Jones, complained to the police last summer that during a disagreement following a fatal yacht collision in 2019, Lady Mone told him in a WhatsApp message he was “a waste of a man’s white skin”.
Lynton-Jones gave a statement to the police in October, providing screenshots of the messages. He is understood to have told the police in his statement that he believed Mone racially attacked him by using those words in the message, that he found it grossly offensive and felt harassed, alarmed and distressed by it.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...racist-message
