Michelle Mone Hits Back At Tory Peer On ‘Mysteriously’ Finding ‘Lost Texts’ Amid PPE Row

David GilmourDec 19th, 2023, 11:29 am

Michelle Mone is interviewed by BBC’s Laura Kuensberg. (Screengrab via BBC News)

Embattled Tory peer Michelle Mone hit back at former health minister Lord James Bethell after he posted screenshots of their 2020 correspondence to criticise her, suggesting that he should hand over the texts he’d said were lost but had now “mysteriously” recovered to the Covid Inquiry.

The tetchy exchange took place on X amid the ongoing saga over the direct involvement of Mone with PPE Medpro, a company led by her husband Doug Barrowman.

PPE Medpro was awarded lucrative contracts for personal protective equipment during the pandemic in mid-2020 following Mone’s direct approaches to ministers, including then-Cabinet Office head Michael Gove.

Replying to a tweet on Monday by Mone, Bethell accused her of being dishonest about her financial ties and posted a screenshot of a text from her sent October 2020.

@MichelleMone wasn’t “honest” about her financial interest to me.
She didn’t explain “from the very beginning” about her financial “involvement” – her message below was typical.
It wasn’t in her Register of Interests, as you’d expect it. @RishiSunak is right to take this… https://t.co/YareaimiXA pic.twitter.com/jXxB889WSr

— Lord Bethell (@JimBethell) December 18, 2023

Mone fired back on social media, mockingly questioning Bethell’s sudden retrieval of texts from 2020 and urging him to submit them to the Covid inquiry, accompanied by a popcorn emoji.

https://twitter.com/JimBethell/status/1736772936097202293/quotes

Bethell, who oversaw the awarding of Covid contracts, was previously asked to disclose email, WhatsApp and SMS correspondence to the ongoing Covid Inquiry. However, he had a government lawyer issue a witness statement that he lost all access to SMS and WhatsApp messages prior to mid-2021 after he’d lost his phone, which he said was also broken and replaced. Bethell said his new phone did not contain the relevant SMS or WhatsApp data.