Baroness Mone’s comments on the High Court’s PPE Medpro judgement are post-truth nonsense
The murky world of politics rarely throws up equations of solid black and white but when it comes to the PPE scandal at the height of the pandemic, there is no shade of grey.
The majority of the public have come to associate PPE Medpro with everything that was wrong with the response to the Covid crisis.
Baroness Michelle Mone, who was made a Conservative peer by David Cameron in 2015, used her position to pushed for the consortium to be given contracts through the government’s controversial VIP fast lane. Both she and her husband were linked to PPE Medpro.
Lady Mone’s criticism of the High Court judgment, ordering the company to repay almost £122m to the Government for a breach of contract, calling it a win for the “establishment”, is the sort of post-truth nonsense that should be roundly condemned across the political spectrum. The judgement was not a “travesty of justice”, as her husband Doug Barrowman described it.
It was confirmation that PPE Medpro had breached its contract and more shockingly left brave frontline workers short of the equipment that they needed to fight an unprecedented public health crisis.
The fact that Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho has also called for Baroness Mone to resign from the House of Lords shows that she should do the decent thing and resign from the House of Lords.
This is also a reminder of the need for Parliament to uphold standards at all times, including during times of crisis.