Labour demands Gove answers questions over Michelle Mone PPE controversy
Michael Gove is facing calls to answer questions before MPs over PPE firm Medpro after Baroness Michelle Mone admitted she stands to benefit from a deal between the government and the firm.
Mr Gove was chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster when the COVID pandemic struck and was name-checked by Baroness Mone in her first major broadcast interview since the scandal emerged.
The interview, on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, saw Baroness Mone admit she did not tell the truth about her links to the PPE firm – while insisting that she and her husband have “no case to answer”.
Politics latest: Baroness Mone ‘should have declared’ interest in PPE firm
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Mone admits ‘error’ by denying link to PPE firm
The National Crime Agency is investigating the company, while the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has since issued breach of contract proceedings over a 2020 deal on the supply of gowns.
Baroness Mone, who was appointed to the Lords by David Cameron in 2015, said she contacted Mr Gove at the start of the pandemic following a “call to arms for all Lords, baronesses, MPs, senior civil servants, to help, because they needed massive quantities of PPE”.
“I just said, ‘We can help, and we want to help.’ And he was like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is amazing’,” she added.
Shadow cabinet office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds has now called on Mr Gove to answer questions following her claim.
Pic: AP
In a letter to Mr Gove, he said: “This series of events has led to civil litigation and a National Crime Agency investigation.
“Yet these ongoing matters should not preclude you from addressing questions about your own involvement and the role of the government.
“Events so far expose a shocking recklessness by the Conservative government with regard to public money, and a sorry tale of incompetence in relation to the so-called ‘VIP Lane’ for procurement during the pandemic.”
Mr Thomas-Symonds said Mr Gove should answer questions about the so-called “call to arms” and what further communications he had with Baroness Mone.
“The very least Conservative ministers owe is maximum possible transparency and there should be an urgent statement to parliament before the Christmas recess,” he added.
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In December 2022, as further allegations were emerging, Baroness Mone confirmed she was taking a leave of absence from the Lords in order to “clear her name”.
Energy minister Lord Callanan told Sky News he hoped Baroness Mone would “see sense” and not return to the House of Lords following the scandal.
The Tory peer said he could not comment on the details of what happened due to ongoing court cases.
However, pushed by Sky News’ Kay Burley on whether someone who had admitted to lying should be allowed back into parliament, he said: “I would hope that she would see sense.”
The minister added: “It is a matter for her to decide… [but] I would hope she would not be coming back to the House of Lords.”
In the BBC interview, Baroness Mone insisted that lying to the media is “not a crime”.
She admitted she stands to benefit from a deal between the government and the firm, which was awarded contracts worth more than £200m to supply PPE after she recommended it to ministers.
She also conceded she made an “error” in publicly denying her links to the firm.
She owned up to being is a beneficiary of her husband Doug Barrowman’s financial trusts, which hold around £60m of profit from the deal, but said the couple have been made “scapegoats” for the government’s wider PPE failings.
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Baroness Mone has repeatedly denied that she profited from the deal.
She told the BBC: “If one day, if, God forbid, my husband passes away before me, then I am a beneficiary, as well as his children and my children, so, yes, of course”.
The baroness added she did not mean to fool anyone, despite admitting the couple misled the press about their involvement.
Millions of gowns supplied by the company were never used by health services and the DHSC is still seeking to claw back some of the money.
The couple insist the gowns were supplied in accordance with the contract.
A DHSC spokesman said: “We do not comment on ongoing legal cases.”
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.
While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.
According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.
Source: Web.archive.org
Nakamoto’s anonymity has played a vital role in maintaining the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, which has no central authority or leadership.
The Bitcoin wallet associated with Nakamoto, which holds over 1 million BTC, has laid dormant for more than 16 years despite BTC rising from $0 to an all-time high above $109,000 in January.
Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Lugano, Switzerland. Source: Cointelegraph
Nakamoto’s 50th birthday comes nearly a month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, marking the first major step toward integrating Bitcoin into the US financial system.
Related: Bitcoin at 16: From experiment to trillion-dollar asset
Nakamoto’s legacy: a “cornerstone of economic sovereignty”
“At 50, Nakamoto’s legacy is no longer just code; it’s a cornerstone of economic sovereignty,” according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
“Bitcoin’s reserve status signals trust in its scarcity and resilience,” Lian told Cointelegraph, adding:
“What’s fascinating is the timing. Fifty feels symbolic — half a century of life, mirrored by Bitcoin’s journey from a white paper to a trillion-dollar asset. Nakamoto’s vision of trustless, peer-to-peer money has outgrown its cypherpunk roots, entering the halls of power.”
However, lingering questions about Nakamoto remain unanswered, including whether they still hold the keys to their wallet, which is “a fortune now tied to US policy,” Lian said.
Related: Bitcoin’s next catalyst: End of $36T US debt ceiling suspension
Is Satoshi Nakamoto wealthier than Bill Gates?
In February, Arkham Intelligence published findings that attribute 1.096 million BTC — then valued at more than $108 billion — to Nakamoto. That would place him above Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the global wealth rankings, according to data shared by Coinbase director Conor Grogan.
Satoshi’s new addresses. Source: Conor Grogan
If accurate, this would make Nakamoto the world’s 16th richest person.
Despite the growing interest in Nakamoto’s identity and holdings, his early decision to remain anonymous and inactive has helped preserve Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos — a principle that continues to define the cryptocurrency to this day.
Magazine: 10 crypto theories that missed as badly as ‘Peter Todd is Satoshi’
The United States stock market lost more in value over the April 4 trading day than the entire cryptocurrency market is worth, as fears over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to ramp up.
On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market’s $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication.
Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market”
Among the Magnificent-7 stocks, Tesla (TSLA) led the losses on the day with a 10.42% drop, followed by Nvidia (NVDA) down 7.36% and Apple (AAPL) falling 7.29%, according to TradingView data.
The significant decline across the board signals that the Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market” after falling 6% across the trading day, trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter said in an April 4 X post. This is the largest daily decline since March 16, 2020.
“US stocks have now erased a massive -$11 TRILLION since February 19 with recession odds ABOVE 60%,” it added. The Kobessi Letter said Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement was “historic” and if the tariffs continue, a recession will be “impossible to avoid.”
Source: Anthony Scaramucci
On April 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
Trump said the reciprocal tariffs will be roughly half the rate US trading partners impose on American goods.
Related: Bitcoin bulls defend $80K support as ‘World War 3 of trade wars’ crushes US stocks
Meanwhile, the crypto industry has pointed out that while the stock market continues to decline, Bitcoin (BTC) remains stronger than most expected.
Crypto trader Plan Markus pointed out in an April 4 X post that while the entire stock market “is tanking,” Bitcoin is holding.
Source: Jeff Dorman
Even some crypto skeptics have pointed out the contrast between Bitcoin’s performance and the US stock market during the recent period of macro uncertainty.
Stock market commentator Dividend Hero told his 203,200 X followers that he has “hated on Bitcoin in the past, but seeing it not tank while the stock market does is very interesting to me.”
Meanwhile, technical trader Urkel said Bitcoin “doesn’t appear to care one bit about tariff wars and markets tanking.” Bitcoin is trading at $83,749 at the time of publication, down 0.16% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.
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