Carol Vorderman has reignited her bitter feud with Michelle Mone after the peer was ordered to repay £122 million in a humiliating High Court ruling over faulty PPE.
The former Countdown star, 64, took to Instagram to celebrate the judgement against PPE Medpro, the company linked to Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman, which supplied millions of unusable gowns during the pandemic.
“Finally the company Mone put forward to the Tory VIP PPE lane has been found to owe us £122m by supplying unusable and non-sterile gowns,” Vorderman wrote. “Yes at last. The story is far from over. I’m so glad I fought against PPE corruption, but the fight goes on.”
Her post was quickly applauded by celebrity friends including Alan Carr, Mary Portas and Russell T Davies.
Vorderman, who has long campaigned against pandemic profiteering, said she had “done all I could” to help investigative journalists pursue the story. She also revealed the personal cost of speaking out: “For that action I was threatened, lied about, was sacked from my BBC radio job as I refused to back down criticising her and the Tories.”
The former friends’ relationship collapsed more than a decade ago, and in recent years Vorderman has become one of Mone’s fiercest critics. In 2023, she sparked headlines with a fiery monologue on ITV’s This Morning, branding Mone “a liar” and challenging her on air: “Sue me, Michelle.”
The High Court ruling delivered this week found that 25 million gowns supplied by PPE Medpro at the height of the Covid crisis failed to meet sterility standards, leaving them unusable. Judge Mrs Justice Cockerill said the Department of Health and Social Care could now recover the full £122 million cost.
The judgement has intensified calls for Baroness Mone to be expelled from the House of Lords. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “We want our money back. We are getting our money back.” Health Secretary Wes Streeting accused PPE Medpro of “putting NHS staff and patients in danger with substandard kit whilst lining their own pockets.”
Mone, 53, ennobled in 2015 by David Cameron, and her husband reportedly made more than £60m from pandemic contracts. Both deny wrongdoing and remain under criminal investigation.
Responding to the verdict, Mone dismissed it as “an establishment win,” while Barrowman insisted the gowns were sterile, branding the decision “a whitewash.”
PPE Medpro has until October 15 to repay the money.
