Thread by @MrMarkEThomas

Thread (1/28)
Conservative Peer Baroness Michelle Mone and her family received almost £29 million from a firm on whose behalf she had lobbied.

This thread looks at what she did, and whether she is an outlier in such behaviour.

(2/28)
Mone helped PPE Medpro win contracts worth over £200m for providing personal protective equipment (PPE) during the pandemic.
“The largest part of the order, about 25m surgical gowns, was ultimately deemed unfit for purpose.”
ft.com/content/147d66…

(3/28)
In short, Mone lobbied for the contract to be awarded to PPE Medpro, rather than to a supplier who might have provided usable PPE.
PPE Medpro gave £65 million to Douglas Barrowman, her husband, who in turn transferred £28.8 million to her off-shore trust.

(4/28)
Here is a picture of the money trail. It is worth adding that all of the trusts and personal bank accounts shown in the diagram are based in the off-shore tax haven, the Isle of Man.

(5/28)
The Guardian reported,
“Asked ... why Mone did not include PPE Medpro in her HoL register of interests, her lawyer replied: ‘[she] did not declare ... as she did not benefit financially and was not connected to PPE Medpro in any capacity.’”
theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/n…

(6/28)
It is for the NCA and the Courts to determine whether there is anything illegal in what Mone did in this case.

This thread asks: was this just a monstrous aberration in the functioning of a generally decent government, or is it a core part of how it functions?

(7/28)
This is no aberration; our government is transforming the UK into a Plunderstate:
•The UK government is dominated by market fundamentalists
•They have created mechanisms to facilitate the kind of transaction
•They are dismantling our democratic safeguards

(8/28)
The UK no longer has a traditional Conservative Government, as many traditional Conservatives have pointed out.

(9/28)
Other prominent Conservatives and ex-Conservatives who have made similar points in public include Peter Aldous, Heidi Allen, Aaron Bell, Karen Bradley, Andrew Bridgen, Ken Clarke, Ruth Davidson, David Davis, Tobias Ellwood, David Gauke, Roger Gale, Nick Gibb, ...

(9b/28)
...Dominic Grieve, Philip Hammond, Mark Harper, Neil Hudson, Tim Loughton, Anthony Mangnall, Nigel Mills, Andrew Mitchell, Caroline Nokes, Douglas Ross, Anna Soubry, Rory Stewart, Gary Streeter, Tom Tugendhat, ...

(9c/28)
...Christian Wakeford, Charles Walker, Craig Whittaker, Lord Wolfson and William Wragg.

(10/28)
These are one-nation Tories, not the market fundamentalists who dominate the cabinet.

MFs have a sense of 'morality' – which includes a belief that taxing the rich is fundamentally unjust, and they must rectify that injustice.
99-percent.org/what-is-the-ma…

(11/28)
Their attitude to tax is:
“tax-funded spending is fine, as long as we can direct it to whom we want and as long as the tax burden does not fall on the wealthiest.”
99-percent.org/malice-in-plun…

(12/28)
We might expect money to flow like this:

(13/28)
But in a Plunderstate, the way money flows is like this:
https://t.co/HX6RsptSK499-percent.org/plunderland-re…

(14/28) The parallel with the Mone affair is obvious.
But that affair on its own does not show that the UK is moving towards being a Plunderstate in any systematic way. To see that, it is worth looking a little wider.

(15/28)
During the early months of the pandemic, the Government set up a new system of ‘VIP lanes’ to enable contacts of ministers to obtain contracts during COVID, often crowding-out more capable suppliers.
99-percent.org/money-for-noth…

(16/28)
Even greater was the scale of the procurement issue around Test & Trace: the government ear-marked £37 billion to the Test & Trace programme and put the procurement in the charge of Baroness Dido Harding.
99-percent.org/whats-in-a-nam…

(17/28)
To prevent accusations of corruption, the government also had an anti-corruption Tsar – who at the time was John Penrose, the husband of Baroness Dido Harding.

(18/28)
Did Harding spend the money well? Not according to the National Audit Office, who found:

“As with many other government procurements during the pandemic, 70% of early contracts by value were assigned as direct awards without competition under emergency measures.”

(19/28)
And the results have not been good. The NAO report has strongly-worded criticisms:
“24 The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) provided advice on what a testing and tracing system needs to achieve ...; to date NHST&T has not achieved these standards.”

(20/28)
So, the Mone affair is far from being an isolated incident: it reflects a modus operandi which is being deliberately institutionalised – eg by creating new systems like the VIP lanes.

(21/28)
Of course, most UK citizens do not want to see their country turned into a Plunderstate, so the government has been working hard to reduce our ability to resist the change.

(22/28)
The Judicial Review and Courts Act makes it harder for citizens to take the government to court – things which in the past have been overturned by the courts such as the illegal proroguing of Parliament, will be harder to challenge.
justice.org.uk/judicial-revie…

(23/28)
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act means that we in the UK no longer have the right to peaceful protest – if the government believes that a protest might be too noisy or cause disturbance, it can declare it illegal
99-percent.org/what-kind-of-c…

(24/28)
The Elections Act 2022 makes what used to be independent, the Electoral Commission, report to ministers. It makes it harder for young people to vote, and it restricts the ability of opposition parties to co-operate.
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…

(25/28)
The Bill of Rights Bill is a threat to our human rights, and it proposes to make it far harder for a UK citizen to rely on internationally agreed Human Rights legislation – the UK courts will no longer be bound to uphold it.
99-percent.org/a-renewed-assa…

(26/28)
Our government is systematically transforming the UK from what used to be a moderately prosperous and moderately democratic country into a Plunderstate in which ordinary citizens will have few rights and fewer opportunities.

(27a/28)
Fortunately, the UK population is beginning to appreciate the hardship which lies in store if there is no change in direction, and the Conservatives are well behind in the polls.

(27b/28)
This means we have the power to force the government to change direction. As the ousting of both Johnson and Truss shows, if we make our MPs aware of the scale of our discontent, they will act – if only out of self-preservation.

(28/28)
If you would like to send a message to your MP, these notes will make it quick and easy for you.
99-percent.org/how-to-stop-th…

PS If you would like to help more widely, please do sign up and join the 99% Organisation.
99-percent.org

And getting this petition to 1 million, will send a powerful signal...

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/6197…

PPS For anyone who doubts that this kind of abuse of position is being deliberately institutionalised...

PPS here is a summary of the thread in a single article.

A Monstrous Aberration? via @99organisation99-percent.org/a-monstrous-ab…