Christmas preparations on the Isle of Man – but there’s no sign of Michelle Mone at her luxury home
She is no stranger to the spotlight. A book deal, regular television appearances and a prolific presence on Instagram, all part of a carefully crafted public image that helped Michelle Mone secure a peerage in 2015.
Yet, Baroness Mone – or “Lady M” as she often refers to herself – has been keeping a low profile in recent weeks.
A series of damaging allegations have thrust the lingerie entrepreneur and Conservative peer into the centre of an alleged scandal that is engulfing the House of Lords.
She is accused of attempting to “bully and hector” ministers into awarding public PPE contracts worth more than £200m to a company called PPE Medpro during the pandemic and of profiting from the deal – a claim she strongly denies.
Having now taken a leave of absence from the House of Lords, Lady Mone says she wants to clear her name but she has been noticeably quiet so far.
On the Isle of Man, at the 154 acre-estate she shares with her husband Douglas Barrowman, preparations are under way for the festive period.
Christmas trees, wreaths and decorations adorn the home, but staff – who have been told not to speak to journalists – insist they have no idea where the couple are.
It’s a peaceful corner of the island and the gated property may offer Mone some refuge from the growing scandal – but the issue is not going away any time soon.
The House of Lords is looking into whether Mone broke any rules and the National Crime Agency has launched a fraud investigation into PPE Medpro, whose gowns were unusable because they failed NHS checks.
A number of official reports will follow but Lady Mone’s representatives have described it as a “witch hunt”.
At the centre of the storm is Michelle and her husband Douglas. According to files compiled by HSBC, which were first obtained by The Guardian, accounts linked to Barrowman, and later Mone, received millions of pounds in transfers from PPE Medpro.
Michelle Mone is admitted to the House of Lords as Baroness Mone of Mayfair, after being made a Tory peer
Another leaked document lists PPE Medpro as an “entity” of Barrowman’s family office, the Knox family office on the Isle of Man.
It was prepared by Anthony Page, a finance director at one of its trusts and the registered owner of PPE Medpro.
At his home in the centre of the Isle, Mr Page was keeping a low profile.
He refused to speak when Sky News approached him for an interview.
Neighbours described him as “a very pleasant family man” and said they were surprised by the news of his involvement in the scandal.
Situation needs ‘proper investigation’
Residents told us that news usually travels fast on the Isle of Man, but there was a sense of resignation about the latest revelations. A feeling that this is just another Westminster scandal.
Frank Schuengel, a councillor for Douglas South Ward, said: “It’s a big topic in the UK, probably more there (than here) because we don’t have a House of Lords. It’s not applicable, we have our own government.
“It’s not the kind of politics that I would personally do but I’m sure there will be processes and investigations.
“It’s a shame whenever someone doesn’t act in a way that you would wish all politicians to act.
“But I think it’s being investigated and if something is not right, one would hope that any investigation would uncover that.”
Baroness Mone (centre) ahead of the state opening of parliament by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017
Some wanted to avoid jumping to conclusions before investigations are completed, but others had already made up their minds.
On Strand Street, the main shopping high street in Douglas, one local resident said: “It is disappointing. I think that anybody that does that kind of thing just isn’t really a moral person. So, it’s a bad example. Hopefully more will come to light.”
Another added: “I just think it’s awful. There were a lot of irregularities surrounding all the PPE supplies during the pandemic. As far as Michelle Mone is concerned… and the situation around it, I think needs proper investigation.”
‘Corruption at the highest levels’
Mone’s lawyers claim she only made the “simple, solitary and brief step,” of referring the company to the government.
They insist she and her husband, Douglas, had no involvement in PPE Medpro, nor did they play any role in the process through which it was awarded its government contract.
Baroness Michelle Mone attends the state opening of parliament in 2019
That was before a series of damaging emails appeared to show her pressuring ministers to award PPE Medpro government contracts.
At the height of the pandemic, she wrote to former health secretary Matt Hancock, allegedly saying: “I am going to blow this all wide open.
“I smell a rat here. It’s more than the usual red tape, incompetence and bureaucracy. That’s expected! I believe there is corruption here at the highest levels and a cover up is taking place… Don’t say I didn’t warn you when Panorama or Horizon run an exposé documentary on all this.
“I say a level playing field for all.”
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PPE Medpro was later awarded two contracts worth more than £200m without tender. The entire process is now coming under intense scrutiny.
Lady Mone foresaw this – but she probably didn’t expect to be at the centre of it all.
World
UK plans to ramp up weapons production for Ukraine and Western defence as Lord Cameron reveals envoy will oversee ‘national priority’
The UK will appoint a new envoy to oversee a plan to ramp up the production of weapons and ammunition, which is now a “national priority”, the foreign secretary has revealed.
Lord Cameron, speaking on a visit to Ukraine, also underlined the importance of supporting the Ukrainian war effort against Russia, warning that the world was at an “absolutely critical tipping point” and Kyiv must prevail or else Europe faced a “very dangerous future”.
However, he cautioned against an idea from French President Emmanuel Macron to consider sending NATO troops to Ukraine to join the fight if Russia’s Vladimir Putin achieves a breakthrough, saying that such a move would be a “dangerous escalation”.
“I don’t think it is right to have NATO soldiers killing Russian soldiers,” the foreign secretary said in an interview in the western city of Lviv on Friday, having met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top ministers in Kyiv on Thursday.
Follow live:
Moscow rages over Cameron remarks
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, shakes hands with Lord Cameron this week. Pic: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/AP
Lord Cameron made the two-day trip to reaffirm the UK’s commitment to Ukraine, which most recently includes a promise to transfer more of the British military’s own stockpiles of weapons, including precision-guided bombs and air defence missiles.
The UK has also promised at least £3bn worth of military assistance annually.
But Western nations are failing to deliver munitions to Ukraine’s frontline as quickly as Russia is rearming its military, with Russian troops gaining ground in the east in recent months.
President Putin put his economy on a war footing when he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – something NATO allies are only slowly starting to move towards.
Rishi Sunak said last week he would increase UK defence spending to 2.5% of national income by 2030 – claiming this equated to an additional £75bn in investment.
He also said he was putting the UK defence industry on a “war footing” and added £10bn of new funding would be dedicated to domestic munitions production over the next decade.
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Lord Cameron met Lviv’s mayor during his visit to Ukraine
‘We need to build up our own stocks’
Asked how Britain could force defence companies like BAE Systems, Thales and Babcock – that have to answer to their shareholders, not the government – to increase production lines at the required rate and scale without some kind of legislation to force them to act, Lord Cameron revealed the plan for a new envoy for defence production.
“There is a specific munitions strategy of £10bn which will do exactly what you are talking about – the ramping up of production,” he said.
“But crucially I think we can go further than that in terms of a specific defence envoy with the ability from the prime minister to go out and make sure we are doing those muti-year deals with the defence suppliers because we need not only to provide more weapons to Ukraine, we need to build up our own stocks.
“So this is very important, it is a national priority.
“The prime minister is giving the lead and I think the industry will respond.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Pushed on whether the new envoy – whose identity has not yet been revealed – would be the modern-day equivalent of someone like Lord Beaverbrook, who was tasked with expanding aircraft production during the Second World War, Lord Cameron said: “It is the 21st century so there won’t be a Lord Beaverbrook.”
But he signalled that the envoy’s ability to approach industry with a commitment to fund multi-year contracts for munitions would be key – and could also drive down cost.
“It is possible to go to the defence contractors and say to them: ‘You are not going to get the price you might have hoped for year after year after year because we are going to make a contract with you over the coming years to make sure we replenish our ammunition, our artillery, our long rage fires, our missiles’ – those crucial things vital for Ukraine but also vital for our own defence.”
As for why the government needed to appoint a specific envoy to this role, Lord Cameron said: “You need I think to have that direct line to the prime minister to make sure we are making this the national priority it clearly is.”
Cameron warns of ‘dangerous future’
Turning to the war in Ukraine, the foreign secretary said Europe faced “two futures” – one in which Ukrainian forces, backed by Western weapons, are able to push out the Russian invaders and secure what he called a “just peace”.
“That is a footing on which you can see great security and prosperity for us and for Europe,” he said.
But he warned: “A future in which Putin is successful and Ukraine is pushed back is I think a very dangerous future.”
Nations such as Moldova and even the NATO states of the Baltics would be worried that President Putin might turn his attention towards them next, Lord Cameron said.
In addition, the authoritarian regimes in Iran and China would be watching closely.
“I think we are at an absolutely crucial tipping point in global affairs,” Lord Cameron added.
A young women’s rights activist from Afghanistan recently left the country and travelled to Iran.
Women in both countries have few rights – but the activist told Sky News that when she arrived she saw a massive difference between the two places.
That was until Iranian women revealed how they suffered under the Islamic Republic’s regime.
We are keeping the activist anonymous to protect her safety. This is her story:
Almost three years of living in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime has systemically erased me and my fellow Afghan women from public life.
During this time, I struggled with deep depression and mental health crises, like countless women in the country.
There was no hope my situation would improve so my brother urged me to go travelling with him.
For most of people in Afghanistan, there are two countries we can travel to – Pakistan and Iran.
But because I’m a women’s rights activist and there has been a women’s revolution in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini, I chose to go to Iran.
Mahsa Amini. Pic: Reuters
In the first days of our arrival, I could see women everywhere – in the streets, schools, universities, parks, restaurants – free to wear and do what they want at any time.
One day, I went to a beauty salon in the Mashhad area of Iran.
When I entered, there was a woman who just entered the salon before me. She was crying and all the women in the salon were welcoming her with tears and open hugs.
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Waiting for my turn, I got more information about Sapideh. She was a well-known client of the salon for years.
She had lost her father recently – her only parent – and had been at home overcoming her grief and loss. It sounded like she didn’t have any other family or friends to support her in this difficult time.
The ladies in the beauty salon listened to her words and cries and everyone did their best to comfort her.
When I was leaving, I could see that three women were working on her face, hair, and nails. She had stopped crying.
Iranian women on a street in Tehran as new hijab surveillance was implemented last year. Pic: Reuters
In Afghanistan, beauty salons – the small spaces that allow women to help and support each other – are all closed.
On my way to the hotel, I saw women driving, or women without hijab who were free – and my mind could only think of Afghan women.
Because we are used to it, we don’t know that our rights and our freedoms have been stolen from us.
The Taliban have dramatically curtailed the rights of women and girls since they regained power. Pic: AP
During those first days, I was constantly comparing our situation with Iranian women – I couldn’t find any similarity between our struggles, even though both countries can be described as having gender apartheid regimes.
In Afghanistan, women are fighting for basic human rights that we are denied, but Iranian women already appear to have them all.
Women in Afghanistan. Pic: Reuters
Iranian women are suffering but I wasn’t able to see that as I am one of the millions of Afghan women who are subject to suffering, oppression, and pain.
Meeting Tranom, a young Iranian teenager, in the bathroom of a shopping mall, changed my mind.
Tranom, who was 16, had short purple hair, no hijab, and was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She told me that when she had a proper hijab, she had been arrested three times.
“It was too bad for a woman to be arrested in my society but now I’m not scared anymore. I wear what I want,” she said.
A young women films during a protest in Iran in October 2022
When I was in Tehran, I met Zari, a construction engineering student.
We discussed my first impressions of Iran. Zari said that the regime is mostly targeting the young generation of Iranians.
Areas that have more young people also have more trouble and tensions.
“You might have not seen the vans of Gasht-a Ershad, the Iranian morality police, in other areas but you can see one of them in [the] neighbourhood where the university is located and the parks where female and male students go,” said Zari.
Young Iranian women, especially students, are oppressed every day under the pretext that their hijab is not worn correctly, I learned from Zari.
Read more:
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When I travelled with my brother to Kish Island, in southern Iran, I met Fatima, a teacher who was there with her daughter and husband.
She spoke about a deep mental health crisis and depression among Iranian women.
A couple watch swimmers on Kish Island. Pic: Reuters
While we were sitting on the beach of the Persian Gulf, she asked me to watch each woman who was passing in front of us.
She told me that Kish Island is one of the most expensive places in the country – many Iranians dream of visiting. The people here are the wealthy of Iran, she says.
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Meet the women living in a warzone
“When you are looking at women, you see they wear expensive clothes and they have plastic surgery and sometimes heavy make-up,” said Fatima.
“But none of them are happy because they have been oppressed by the regime. Because they are not free.”
“The fear from the morality police [is that they] never leave them alone. They all are aware of countless young women who have been arrested under the hijab pretext, and they have been raped, tortured, killed and disappeared. We all are alive but we are not living.”
Gender apartheid must be codified as a crime against humanity – let all Afghan and Iranian women live free.
Russia has denied allegations of breaching the international chemical weapons ban by deploying chocking agents against Ukrainian troops.
The Kremlin on Thursday responded to claims by the United States that it had used choking agent chloropicrin against Ukrainian troops – the same agent used by German forces against Allied troops during the First World War.
The United States also accused Russia of using riot control agents “as a method of warfare” in Ukraine, which according to Ukrainian military cited by Reuters earlier this month, is being increasingly used in the country.
Follow live: ‘Large fire’ as Russia hits port city with ballistic missile
Grenades containing CS and CN gases have also reportedly been used on the frontline, forcing troops stuck in trenches to either flee under enemy fire or risk suffocating.
At least 500 Ukrainian troops have been treated for exposure to a toxic substance, the military said, with one dying as a result of suffocating on tear gas.
The US State Department believes Russia has been violating international rules on chemical weapons under the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow remained bound by its obligations under the treaty.
“The use of such chemicals is not an isolated incident and is probably driven by Russian forces’ desire to dislodge Ukrainian forces from fortified positions and achieve tactical gains on the battlefield,” the US State Department said in a statement.
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Chloropicrin is listed as a banned choking agent by the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which was created to implement and monitor compliance with the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.
According to the US, Moscow’s use of the gas “comes from the same playbook as its operations to poison” the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020 and Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in 2018 with the Novichok nerve agent.
Russia denied involvement in both cases.
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