Reading the Guardian’s PPE Medpro exposé and watching Laura Kuenssberg’s interview of Doug Barrowman and Michelle Mone (How the Michelle Mone scandal unfolded: £200m of PPE contracts, denials and a government lawsuit, 17 December), I was reminded of Stanley Baldwin’s reported comment on the new mainly Conservative MPs elected in 1918: he thought that they were a lot of “hard-faced men” who looked as if they had done well out of the war.
In this case, it’s not the national tragedy of a war that these two profited from but a lethal pandemic; and it isn’t only Barrowman who has done well either, given the £29m in the Keristal Trust, of which Mone and her children are beneficiaries.
What is it about so many powerful rich people that gives them a sense of entitlement and the feeling that they can do no wrong? As with Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak at the Covid inquiry, there appears to be a lack of real reflection, self-awareness and genuine contrition. They all seem to share an unwillingness to see themselves as others see them.
To be fair to Mone and Barrowman, though, at least they could remember what they had said and done, unlike the two prime ministers, whose memory lapses are quite worrying in people who were supposed to be running the country.
Richard Ellis
Stoke-on-Trent
• The Conservative minister Lord Callanan says that he “hopes” Baroness Mone will see sense and not return to the House of Lords (Michelle Mone and ministers trade claims over her hidden links to PPE deals, 18 December).
In fact the house must stop her abuse of a leave of absence (which is intended for those lords who are ill, have serious caring responsibilities or have appointments to positions that mean they can’t attend).
In Mone’s case, she has brought the house into disrepute, which is contrary to the code of conduct. Expulsion is the route the House can and must take.
Sue Miller
Liberal Democrat, House of Lords
• Surely Michelle Mone should do the decent thing: persuade PPE Medpro to give all the profit it made to the NHS; donate all her remaining worldly assets to the poor; cut off her hair; and move into a convent. Her children, whom she claims she is anxious to protect, would then have a magnificent example to follow if they were ever to consider lying as a way of life.
Alan John
Louth, Lincolnshire
• You report that Michelle Mone told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg: “I was just protecting my family … I wasn’t trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes” (Michelle Mone admits she lied to media over links to PPE firm, 17 December). Good to see that Prince Andrew’s PR advisers still have some clients.
Andrew Gore
Linton, Cambridgeshire
• If Michelle Mone thinks it’s not a crime to lie to the press, then in that spirit, I’d like to say what a warm and wonderful human being she is.
Phil Sinnott
Crosby, Merseyside
• The second letter above was amended on 20 December 2023. An earlier version misnamed Lord Callanan as Lord Callahan.
