Rarely can there have been a less convincing apology than that offered by Michelle Mone in her weekend interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. Lady Mone admitted last month that she and her husband, Douglas Barrowman, were involved in a company called PPE Medpro that won contracts worth £200m during the pandemic, and banked around £65m of this as profit. On Sunday, she told the BBC that she is sorry for having lied about this for years. But despite the apology, the couple gave the impression of believing that they have done almost nothing wrong. They blame others, principally the media and government officials, or the events that have placed them at the heart of the postmortem into pandemic procurement.
Lady Mone referred repeatedly to the “hell” that reporters have put her family through, as she also did in a tearful interview released on YouTube. Perhaps she hopes Prince Harry’s victory in his phone-hacking case might generate sympathy in a public primed to resent press intrusion. Never mind that the circumstances are completely different. She also said that she was advised not to declare her interest in PPE Medpro on the House of Lords register by the cabinet office.
