Michelle Mone: Is it too easy for the rich and famous to lie to the public? | The News Agents
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- Опубликовано: 19 дек 2023
- What did Michelle Mone mean when she said all she’d done was “lie to the press“ after she threatened journalists with lawsuits if they dared to investigate her story?
Today we follow all the unanswered questions - is our defamation law serving the public?
What did the government know about the missing Mone millions?
And should she still sit in the House of Lords?
Tax Lawyer Dan Neidle and Labour shadow minister Nick Thomas-Symonds join us.
After that, we speak to former UK Ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher on the horror and pain that the war between Israel and Hamas continues to inflict on all those affected; and is Jon Sopel running a covert cannabis farm in his basement?
#crime #law #uk #michellemone #NewsAgents #EmilyMaitlis #JonSopel #LewisGoodall
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She encouraged her lawyer to threaten to sue the press on the basis of her lies to him. The woman is a member of the law making body of the UK. If she can’t see that this is a problem then she needs to be removed from the Lords. Not suspended. The “honour” must be removed.
She's hardly there anyway...but I agree.
Absolutely. Vile thief.
@@mikedignum1868 No doubt she still collects that cheque though 💰
Unfortunastely the very people that have the power to do anything this blatant corruption are very same folk who just want to maintain the status quo as they and their friends do very nicely out of it!
@@stevesmith2214Britain in a nutshell.
Gove should be in jail for his part in this corruption.
All of them which let the country down whilst profiteering
I would jail him just for being a tw a t
@@Royboy50 me too ... he has no redeeming qualities at all. He's awful.
Yes, and the idiots of Surrey Heath that elected this piece of work should join the bloke.
And for being a cokehead
The Tories are all in it together. Mone did what she did and got away with it because the whole Tory establishment is complicit. If they tried to take her down, they'd go down with her. That's why there are no repercussions.
And it's exactly the same with my local council corruption.
The Tories and Labour are in it together. In essence the Labour shadow minister was making no commitment to an effective solution.
What really gets me, is their brazenness and the total absence of shame or guilt. I hope the courts will throw the book at them.
@annastracke8585 - Absense of shame and guilt? Not suprising at all, and not applicable just to rich people. Most top level management from a lot of companies in UK don't have any guilt at all (even now NHS trusts are cutting jobs, and moving some of the jobs to contractors for nice juicy contracts - but you won't hear about it in media; and is not cutting jobs as such but it is the way how it is done).
Pretty much the same with TFL management, Centrica (British Gas), Barclays, UCL (education), and not even talking about something like Morgan Stanley, Bank of England, Investec, BAE Systems, some of the insurance companies with office in Croydon, and so on. In the last 20 years, at the top level of management, I could only see people without any shame or guilt, no matter what decissions they have been making (including plenty of wrong ones). None whatsoever.
So no, this is actually not surprising at all.
Never happen , the "Old boy network " will.kick in and protect them, anyone else not titled or in any form of power would get shat on .
She wasn't lying to the press, she was lying to the British people and the taxpayers. She backed up those lies with threats against people who were looking to investigate her actions. Trying to hide behind concern for her family is shameful. Then again these people know no shame.
Trash is the word you are looking for after absolute.
PPE Medpro was incorporated on 12.5.2020. On 12.6.2020 it received a contract worth £80.85 million and two weeks later another contract worth £122 million. Nothing to see here, move along now.
That in itself isn't really the problem. The speed at which profits were taken as Dividend however IS. The whole thing stinks to high heaven.
Remove her from the HoL and then jail her appropriate to the law
This will be her & her husbands lasting legacy. Profiteering liars. She is currently one of the most hated people in the UK.
Absolutely disgusting excuses for human beings. Not a decent bone between them.
Haha - you said "Bone"
Like Peter Bone! ... another disgusting Tory
The thing about these people is after this embarrassment dies down they won't care, it will be back to normal for them, some money may be recovered, but not all of it, they will cry crocodile tears from their tax Haven
Best defence ever - “well it wasn’t just me that was taking the public for a bunch of fools, it was all of us”
but she is right, why is it just her?
If the first to be taken to task could successfully use that argument to get away with things, then the next person could use the same argument, and so on
@@frogandspanner equally, scapegoating is not quite the best disciplining tool for the bunch of unscrupulous MPs.
Negotiation for a lesser sentence as a whistle blower hopefully
What about the covid clown Hancock
they didn't put out contracts to everyone and anyone. There were UK PPE manufacturers exporting British made PPE to other countries at the time because the government were refusing to give them contracts. I remember seeing people from some of these companies interviewed on TV saying that they would prioritise UK government contracts over any others because they wanted to help, and they were contacting the government offering their services but weren't getting any response. Meanwhile, companies with no experience of medical equipment but just happened to be owned by friends and relatives of government ministers were being given contracts at 80% above the market rate to import substandard or completely unusable PPE from the other side of the world
The VIP lane charged 80% above market value too.
Absolutely spot on.
Intriguing isn’t it?
@jujutrini8412 how can a lawyer/solicitor make it so simple, and a politician make exactly the same thing, so confusing, complex, and complicated.
It really has me baffled.
@@brianevans2819Simple. To make it confusing, complex and complicated.
Those millions are not 'missing', they are in her offshore bank account.
Why did the government not approach genuine UK suppliers who supplied other countries? I wonder!
Much like the current small amount of energy suppliers...............they couldn't be corrupted/controlled !
Because their mates came first
They aren’t the ones who are going to keep them in clover when they don’t get re elected! 😂
They did as well, Supplies were under huge demand.
@@user-hu1yi8ox9z UK companies told the government they were willing and able to supply them. These were companies with the expertise to make PPE. The government ignored them in order to give contracts to their peers.
For me, it's not so much that they lie to the public - virtually everything they say is a lie or based on lies.
The issue is how do we make them accountable.
They know that the Law and Rules have never applied to them. Money has always bought them and their offspring out of any consequences historically.
Enough is Enough
1st they need to be removed from power, then laws can be amended/changed or new ones written
They are a reflection of all of us. We lie to our neighbours, the tax man, our bosses, employees. We are a society of lying uncaring, greedy, thieving hypocrites!
first identify 'THEY' .... we all know. .. . .
They, are All Tories.
Yes, yes it is. They consider themselves exempt from the rules, the entitlement is truly astonishing
She was Labour supporter but when became rich ditched her background and turned greedy. Can never have enough while everyone else got nothing. Thatcher's daughter... vile
Liers always get caught in the end .even most children know that .
Didn't you know? Tories are "born to rule"! Everybody else just has to take orders - and not ask any questions! Sound familiar?
: Nice theory! However, when "the liars" are the media-controlling and law-making government, justice isn't always as full and clear-cut as one expects it should be!
The public paid for her messed up face lift. That lot need jailed. It's sheer corruption.
no, she has a great poker face
It looks pretty bad, I thought she had just overdone the Botox
@@stephenclarke2206lip filler too?
@@internetpolificationI don't know you'd think with all the money she scammed she could have afforded something more professional
@@john_megashe can't move her face for the amount of botox she's has.
The fact that we're even debating the morality of the VIP lane says it all. 20 or even 10 years ago this would be obvious and blatant corruption. Now it's just happening unpunished.
Its a lot to do with Boris Johnson, whenever his MP's broke the rules he changed the rules rather then enforce them. Not forgetting under Johnson & Sunak government fraud increased from £5.5 billion to £21 billion.
There were experienced companies who could and were ready to supply the equipment, they were ignored in favour of Tory donors and friends. This MUST be investigated in depth.
It’s shocking that we, the public, have taken so long to realise this.
Many here in Scotland knew how grotesque she is and being aligned to the Tories was always a natural fit
We've known for years but only now is some progress being made.
@@paulatB2Bthat is correct, but not out of virtue. The middle classes have joint the circus because of mortgage interest rates. Oh dear, the homes are not a money making machine anymore.
Never did with me it was the biggest transfer of wealth ever seen under a lying scam .Where mps family and friends made huge profits sent to offshore accounts.
If they wanted the PPE delivered quickly they should have used the established suppliers. Complete cronyism, disgusting.
They ignored companies who have years of experience in this field and give the contracts to party members and cronies.
When it comes to public money it's definitely a crime or should be 🤬
Why do the super rich go into politics.. only way to get even richer for little effort.
Misappropriation of public money whilst in office, is a crime as far as I know.
We need to hold politicians accountable otherwise there is no hope for this country. When will they realise the country is bigger than their egos and greed!
There was a Housing Association in the East Midlands I was trying to open up business with and gain contact information regarding tendering to provide a IT support contract for their Network. I got lied too and mislead by everyone at this Housing Association until through my own detective work I found out a Tory MP (first name Bernadette) was sitting on the Board and was awarding herself the IT Support contract charging 30k for a contract that at best would only cost a max of 12k for the size of their Network. GREED AND CORRUPTION. Another Tory MP again in Northants and male lied to the tax office regarding 2 businesses he owned declaring his 2nd business did NOT have a trading premises when it did and occupied the 1st floor of his 1st business to reduce his Business and Property Tax. He also got the staff to lie when we had a visit from the Tax Office.
Dan Neidle's suggestion regarding the defamation law is the touch of common sense we need to help hold the rich and powerful to account.
You have to be very clever or lucky to catch the rich, they make the laws of the country so they set the rules of the game, they have for centuries, this country in particular. As the Labour leader Michael Foot once said, "The top are greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves, they always have done".
Even luckier and richer to catch the lying hacks of the liberal media cabal who don't have an honest breath in their rancid bodies.
The traditional suppliers of PPE, were cold shouldered to allow tory chums to take contracts. This was another case of the tories siphoning off public monies, into private hands. This, sort of, government, is totally corrupt.
I work for a small biotech company and our directors offered around £100,000 of ppe free to the local hospitals and were told they couldn’t take it as govt ruling said their ppe had to come from the ‘VIP Lane’ suppliers.
Tory minister to Tory Buddy: “quick, set up a company that supplies PPE and you can have the contract” buddy “great!”
What about all the other VIP lane deals….remember hancocks pub landlord deal….
Nothing worse than someone from the working class gaining entry to the upper fringes of the class system and then using that privilege to theive from and lie to those 'lower' than them.
Absolutely. Total turncoat. I almost expect it from those born into it but there's more of a sting from someone who came from very little.
She’s certainly managed to convince herself of her cast iron entitlement to anything that’s not her’s.
I wonder if her lack of born privilege might make her the perfect scapegoat for those embroiled in the same scandal looking shed some heat?
What about when she falsely claimed to Scottish police she was robbed,that was also kicked under the carpet,she has always been dodgy!
Please tell more?
Well there was 2 cases actually 1 she was robbed at knife point another £100,000 worth of underwear was reportedly stolen to later be reported to just put on another truck! this woman lies like Boris that's why conservative baroness suits her like a gel filled bra!
This was when she pretended her car had been broken into and all her samples and designs were stolen. She smashed the back window of her SUV herself and reported the theft , purely because she didn’t have the samples or designs for a major retailer, who she was supposed to be meeting with that day .
@@5tatra A tall tale - but I believe you.
Embarrassed she is a Scot. I cannot stand liars
Well, their attitude starts with "If it's not a crime, I'm fine to do it", then goes to "If it's not a law that will get enforced on me, I'm fine to do it", and then lastly "If it's a law that I can get my friends not to enforce on me, or I can get away with a slap on the wrist, I'm fine to do it." - society depends on the general population being law abiding, but then you end up with a group who view cheating as just something they're entitled to do and then they act offended when people suggest they should be subject to some standards because "That law is for the little people".
It's called insider trading/dealing, using public funds for your own personal gain. Contracts that should be put out to tender, are given to peers or friends of MP's. This is where corruption lays, on the inside of parliament. If any public servant makes a personal gain, from their trusted position within parliament, and found to be lying about what has transpired, they should be removed from office, and charged for abusing their trusted position.
Private Eye has been covering the problem of SLAPPs and the way that London has become the world centre for them. One long-running suit concerns an ex-Conservative MP who is not a journalist. SLAPPs seem to be the preserve of extremely wealthy people and expensive lawyers.
They done a cracking two page piece on it last year. Crazy amount of waste of public money.
The scrutiny to spend 1p of public money completely went out off the window. What happened to quality, price evaluation......200mil and 60mil of that is personal profit on inadequate goods. This is truly disgusting.
When Mone said 'it isn't a crime to lie to the press' the interviewer should have retorted , 'well, how do we know you're not lying now'?
I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a tactical decision to have Kuenssberg be the interviewer for this one.
@@nickj9668my thoughts exactly nick..
Well while not she might understand the difference between right and wrong she profited from a company that supplied faulty goods and which had been set up specifically to profiteer from a national emergency (Med-Pro PPE wasn't registered as a UK company until a week after she approached the government to join the VIP lane). If the PPE had been supplied at cost with maybe a 5% agent fee she might have an argument but since she and her husband took 30% off the top is profiteering by definition. And since she has denied it for 3 years that is 'consciousness of guilt'
Notice how the Tax Lawyer offered a simple clear statement how to stop this type of "defamation suit", in less than 10 seconds. Contrast that with the politician who talked around the matter, instead of agreeing with the lawyer, for a lot longer than 10 seconds.
💯 … sensible person with sensible solution - total
Eejit with no solution
The politician is part of the problem. Labour will not do anything because they do not want to be the subject of scrutiny either.
Great journalism- Thank you
Describing the blindingly obvious corruption as great journalism is stretching it a bit, this should have been a huge story at the time, not 3 years later..
There does not ever seem to be a legal organisation that will take people like this to court or to prison . She, and her husband STOLE, EMBEZELLED, illegally conned the public out of money that was not theirs , and not what they were entitled too. The law at this level, works with them, and against the public. If any money is recovered, it will be a miserly amount, meaning they can still live in luxury at the taxpayers expense. Crime does pay , but only for a certain class of people.
Think of any single Crime or Misdemeanour committed by the Tories in the last 13 years. If me, or any other ordinary citizen were the perpetrator, we would be jailed. End of.
Jesus Christ. I can’t believe how much that Labour MP said without actually saying anything.
“We need to do this, it’s important that we do that, it’s vital that we do this, we must remember that…”
But never once clearly stating what it is we need to do.
The lawyer on the other hand gave a superb answer on how we should change the law.
When you pay some attention: "The system is broken and needs to be fixed."
When you pay enough attention: "The system is working exactly as intended and needs to be destroyed."
When people show you who they are for the first time believe them.
You're all letting lawyers off too easily here. No new law needs to be passed for lawyers to demand a statement of truth before sending threatening letters.
Lawyers dont do that because they want the fee, regardless of truth.
£37 billion for a track and trace app...work that one out!
That didn't work and was in fact an Excel Spreadsheet.
When we could have had an up and running one for a few hundred million from Germany!
@@lisaglaze250 For £10m
Are we at a point where members of government should be tried in court but we lack to teeth to make it happen?
Guys forget it, she will just get a slap on the wrist from her friends in Westminster where if it was one of us plebs we'd get jail time.
First time I’ve seen this blog - AMAZING! At last people who dig in to find truth and legal nonsense that has no bite. If you have money you win!!!!
The traditional suppliers to the nhs complained at the time they were not approached to supply PPE. Corruption, gravy train pure and simple.
Mone should be made to pay every penny, with interest, back. Also whoever accepted the order of goods that were not fit for purpose should be brought to account.
Wrong from the start. There were large British PPE manufacturers who worked with the NHS and were providing other countries but would have prioritised the UK.. but were NEVER contacted. Conservative donors were prioritised over known, large scale suppliers.
Makes my blood boil,and I've been away for many years.
Why didn't go to ARCO the biggest supplier of PPE in the country not a nicker maker
She's great. She is hopefully the catalyst that causes root and branch reform.
There are many elements to Mone story. The fact she thinks a Member of House of Lords is fit for that position having knowingly lied (even though its not illegal) demonstrates how unfit she is to continue with that title and role. She must resign or it be removed.
With regard to Mone longer term, she is damaged goods and she should disappear into her private life and the public don't want to hear from her again. Public will never forget or forgive and the interview demonstrates how tone deaf she is.
With regard to VIP and lanes and the way this government acted, this needs to investigated and where possible money recovered where legally possible for failure to deliver merchanise that does not meet the specified standards. I suspect this is just the tip of the iceberg and there is much more to be uncovered. I would have thought this is fertile ground for journalists in an election year.
"I would have thought this was fertile ground for journalists in election year"
True! However, far too high a majority of UK media is controlled by media barons who won't hear a word said against their "blue" friends! Consequently, it's down to Labour to show up the Tory corruption. Unfortunately, Starmer is intent on showing the Tory-voting electorate how close the Labour Party is to true Tory values so they can switch to Labour. This means we won't hear a peep out of Starmer - and the Tories will get away with the entire fraud and corruption scandal, scot-free!
So glad they had that chap from Labour on so he could spend 5 minutes saying absolutely nothing.
Asking "everyone and anyone" apart from starting with those Companies whose business for years, is and has been supplying the NHS with PPE!!!! Surely that was the best place to start? The journalists who uncovered this deserve a medal for the threats they faced and all cronies complicit in this need to be subject to the justice system that they tried to hide behind using their wealth. The re is only one reason this is a difficult case to prosecute and that is the fact that there are many other influential parties complicit in this scenario. It is the tip of a very significant political iceberg. It's a no brainer for the changes proposed by Dan Neidle to be implemented in law to protect such events in the future.
Absolutely agree with changes to defamation and Neidle's suggestion
i think we r missing something here..few years before the risk assessment identifying lack of PPE as a problem..being totally ignored!!!!!
'Is it too easy for the rich and famous to lie to the public......
.' My answer to that is 'Do Bears defecate in the woods'.
‘Is it too easy for the rich and famous to lie to the public?’
Ask 2 rich and famous people 🙄
If political journalists actually did their job there shouldn’t be a House of Lords to reward chancers and scammers
Thank you for this episode it was quite eye opening.
Brilliant programme & discussion
Kuenssberg and the BBC failing to ask the ‘difficult’ questions of a Tory, yet again.
In a time of ‘national crisis’ government contracts should be by ‘not for profit’ principles. And, if companies refuse to comply, seize their means of production.
The shadow minister is totally unconvincing on this issue. The simple idea of disincentiving out-right lying is of vital importance to our society. Truth must be the ultimate goal. We need to protect the public as well as journalists from bald faced liars who seek to pervert the truth. Why do we no longer accept that a bald faced liar is the lowest of the low?
Wasn't it ever thus?... These people can Lawyer their way out of anything, morals bedamned.
They don't "win" the contracts, they are handed them on a plate!
On behalf of the people of Scotland 🏴 I would like to humbly apologise for Michelle and Nichola.
If a delivery is not what was expected (ie sterile) then faulty goods can be returned for full credit.
Then why was that not done?
There were companies that had ppe in warehouses, and when they contacted the government they were turned down. Why was that? Doubtless none of the government had shares in them.
The answer is obvious, YES
Mr. Neidle knows his chips. Very interesting contribution 👏👏👏
One word, corruption.
Another great show.
And this lying person was the one who quite happily approved laws for us to abide to !
I have a more cynical analysis as to why the UK government is NOT specifically calling for a ceasefire - because the Arms Industry are making SHED-LOADS of money supplying Israel with weapons and weapons training. This pre-dates the latest hospilities starting on the horrific attack on Israel on 7th October.
Moreover, if the US government says 'JUMP' the UK government says 'HOW HIGH'?
And the US provides the majority of weapons to Israel. It is notable that the largest exporter of weapons worldwide IS the USA, and the second largest is the UK.
The billionaire shareholders of weapons manufacturers carry MASSIVE political 'clout' and have a SRANGLEHOLD on BOTH Republican AND Democratic Parties in the USA. And whilst the same is not true to the same degree in the UK, nonetheless we now have a VERY corrupt government in chrage in the form of this particular Tory government.
Surely solicitors and barristers can implement the statement of truth suggestion as part of their process if they are sending threatening letters on behalf of a client??
Best practice can be overlooked if it’s not regulated/enforced (whether it should be is another matter). As a general principle, why would a law firm risk exposing their client to ‘X’ if there is no need to?
Dans recommendations for changing the liable laws sound interesting, I would be keen to know how feasible they are to implement
When is the law going to act on this WHY the delay??
If there was a drive to get PPE as quickly as possible they would have used all the capacity from existing, NHS appproved suppliers...
1:38 Correction !!! the government was not desperate to find enough PPE supplies. It was not having to reach out to places it had never been to before for PPE. James o'Brien at the time was inundated with calls from manufacturers who had previously supplied PPE to the NHS. They were now working flat out supplying quality PPE all over the world. They were complaining that they were ringing the Tory government to offer to suppy the NHS and offering to prioritise the NHS PPE but were NOT! being called back. The accurate reporting at 1.38 would be " the government was so interested in robbing the taxpayer to give money to their mates like Mone that they ignored established quality suppliers and put NHS staff at risk by ordering often useless or dangerous PPE from people like Mone who knew nothing about PPE and set up companies 5 minutes before to rob the public at this time of crisis."
BS "to protect her family".
Great show by professionals !!
MPs voting to amend the defamation law, particularly around Slap notices is Turkeys voting for Christmas. We'll see but I am cynical. Even the opposition sounds shaky on this, you can smell his lawyer's background in his answering. It remains to be seen whether Mone et al ever face justice.
Just join this podcast. Very clear explanation of the facts behind to what is going on in the world .
Snoopy
It’s amazing how many perpetrators of wrong doing when confronted always then start to blame others. Also claiming ignorance of the rules (declarations of interest) should not be a defence.
Journalists lying to the public should also be perjury , politicians lying at the dispatch box should be perjury … the people in the country who would benefit most would be prison building construction companies. Getting a prison place would be more difficult than for a cat to solve a rubic cube.
PPE Medpro was incorporated on May 12 2020 and received these massive contracts just a couple of months later because of the PPE VIP fast lane, at the same time at least 20 UK manufacturers of PPE had contacted the government and had not even had a reply. (See Rachel Reeves letter to Michael Gove)
You are the enablers of their lying because you never question them properly or do real journalism.
Never lie, let them do that. Just say nothing the law says you do not have to. Silence is never a lie. Never help them to put your integrity at risk. Your ntegrity is more important than there’s.
Not only is it acceptable, it’s obligatory!
Should be a short episode! …YES.
The Sunaks financial dealings needs scrutinised. Infosys is linked to BP, Moderna, a company in Rwanda among others.
The Prime Miniature has a plethora of conflicts of interest.
Why is it that Dan Neidle can come up with a practical solution to these notices, that could be put in place now (by using an existing method in the form of a statement of truth) but the Labour Party contributor could only come up with an anti-SLAPPS law that would take an unnecessary amount of time to instigate and he didn't really explain how it would practically. If Michelle Mone and her husband had been asked to sign a Statement of Truth in the manner described it would have completely demolished her defense. Not sure I would let the politicians sort this one out.
80% above market value PPE ripping off the tax payer? She cant see what done wrong?
Hands up anyone who thinks anything will happen to her or her husband. Was she trying to say she's the victim in that interview?
depends if the tories want to throw her under the bus to save themselves.
@@kanedNunable Not sure that's possible coz she's already made it clear she's not going down on her own
The genie is out, leaving this go by the wayside would be more damaging than making an example of mone, yet the tories are between a rock and a hard place, gather your popcorn supplies.
At the very least she should have her peerage removed in disgrace . If not her conduct has brought the house into disrepute to such an extent that all trust and respect in them has been destroyed . An example must be made of her to deter others and restore trust in the house . She abused her position to further her own interests .
Michelle Mone and her husband should go to jail.
She needs to be kicked out of the House of Lords
To threaten to sue someone for defamation for something that's true should be criminal.
If this payment had been made in the private sector not only would the person making the payment be automatically fired but the police would have been called in immediately. The question therefore has to be " who's been fired over it?
Remember the London riots.
Remember when David Cameron was absolutley scathing in his condemnation of what he called a deep moral sickness within society?
He made a specific example of the depraved sight of a Malaysian student, with a broken jaw, who was being robbed by people pretending to help him?
Remember the sight of hoodlums, smashing into peoples businesses whilst they where totally vunerable, and looting them?
During a time of national crisis and enormous sacrifice by our NHS and front line workers, they used their trusted, privelledged position in public service, to loot the treasury of BILLIONS.
I suspect the only reason there isn't again, riots on the streets over this, is that actually, nobody is surprised.