In a move that has sent tremors through the ermine-clad establishment and caused a collective sharp intake of breath at every gin-soaked club in St. James's, the public inquiry into pandemic procurement has finally done something more than just look sternly over its spectacles. It has demanded full asset recovery from one Baroness Michelle Mone, a peer of the realm whose enthusiasm for lucrative PPE contracts was matched only by her apparent belief that the word 'conflict of interest' was a quaint French dish best avoided.
Let us paint a picture for those of you not versed in the finer arts of modern British graft. Picture, if you will, a woman who rose from humble beginnings to sit in the unelected chamber that polishes our laws, a woman whose business acumen was celebrated in the tabloids as a triumph of working-class grit. Now, picture that same woman caught in a tangle of offshore trusts, bespoke handbags, and contracts worth billions to supply the nation with items so essential that their absence in 2020 cost lives. It is a story so perfectly British that it could only be improved by the addition of a soggy cucumber sandwich and a stiff upper lip trembling with barely suppressed rage.
For those who have been living under a rock or, more likely, avoiding news that induces a special kind of existential nausea, the details are these: Baroness Mone and her husband, a man who reportedly enjoys a taste for the finer things in life, stand accused of using their positions to funnel public money into their own pockets. The goods supplied? Substandard PPE that, in some cases, was about as effective at stopping a virus as a paper umbrella in a hurricane. The profit? Enough to make a Victorian mill owner blush. And now, the public inquiry, that hallowed tribunal of British justice, has decided that enough is enough and that the Baroness should hand back every penny, plus interest, plus perhaps a public apology written on a very large cheque.
Naturally, the Baroness and her legal team have responded with the kind of indignation usually reserved for someone who has been asked to return a library book that was due in 1992. 'This is a witch hunt,' they cry, from the battlements of their tax-efficient castle. 'We have done nothing wrong,' they protest, as the evidence piles up like an Icelandic ash cloud over Heathrow. But the public, or at least those of us who haven't been sedated by years of political theatre, are not so easily fooled. We remember the panic, the desperation, the photographs of nurses in bin bags. We remember the promise that no expense would be spared in protecting the NHS. And we remember that, in the end, some expenses were very much not spared. They were charged, itemised, and lodged in a Swiss bank account.
Now, the inquiry calls for 'full asset recovery,' a phrase that sounds like the title of a particularly gritty episode of a BBC drama. But let us not be naive. The path from a legal demand to actual confetti-fying of ill-gotten gains is long and littered with rich people's lawyers. There will be appeals, delays, and probably a few more holidays to the Maldives before anything trickles back to the public purse. Still, there is a certain grim satisfaction in watching the gears of justice grind, even if they move at the speed of a sedated sloth.
And let us spare a thought for the Prime Minister, a man whose superpower is not remembering anything that happened before breakfast. He will no doubt be asked about this at PMQs, and his answer will involve a great deal of nodding and phrases like 'the right processes are in place' and 'we must let the inquiry do its work.' He will say it with the hollow conviction of a man reading a script written by someone who has already been paid off.
So here we are, ladies and gentlemen, at the precipice of another Great British Scandal. Will the Baroness be forced to sell her handbags, her yachts, perhaps even her title? Or will she, like so many before her, disappear into the comfortable fog of nondisclosure agreements and off-shore accounts? Stay tuned, for the next act of this pantomime is sure to include a few more eye rolls, a stiff gin, and the bitter taste of a country that has once again been sold a pup by people who should have known better.
