The news arrives with the predictable thud of a leaden bell: Baroness Michelle Mone, ennobled by a system that once pretended to reward merit, now faces a lawsuit over her alleged role in steering lucrative PPE contracts to her husband’s company. For the uninitiated, this is not merely a tabloid scandal. It is a case study in the decadence that precedes a civilisation’s decline.
We have seen this before. In the late Roman Republic, senators grew fat on state contracts while the legions went unpaid. In late Victorian Britain, peerages were sold to the nouveaux riches who then gorged on government contracts.
The names change. The dance remains the same. The Baroness, of course, denies wrongdoing.
That is the banal ritual of the powerful. But the question is not whether she is guilty in a court of law. The question is why the system allowed her to get this far.
Why are we surprised that a woman who gave millions to the Conservative Party and received a title in return should now be accused of treating the public purse as her personal piggy bank? The British public, that long-suffering chorus, is finally demanding accountability. But accountability requires memory.
And memory requires that we stop pretending this is an aberration. It is the logical conclusion of a political class that has abandoned any pretence of public service. The Baroness is not a villain.
She is a symptom. And the disease is terminal.
