NADINE DORRIES: So many questions… The biggest is why WAS Michelle Mone made a peer at all?

If ever there was a Sunday morning marmalade dropper, it was Baroness Michelle Mone’s turn on TV. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing.

There she sat, her flaxen hair Dyson-coiffed to perfection, soberly dressed in a black silk shirt and charcoal grey trousers, wearing a frozen expression that was both meek and woeful.

The image was carefully crafted: for her first major interview on her role in a controversial, multi-million pound PPE deal during the pandemic, she was portraying a victim, a woman in the dock who has been wrongfully accused. A woman far removed from brash and outspoken ‘Baroness Bra’ who never passed up an opportunity to strip off to promote her Ultimo lingerie range.

Did it work? It did not. In scenes reminiscent of Prince Andrew’s car-crash Newsnight interview, Mone admitted she’d lied to the Press — and therefore to the public — about her links to Medpro.

This consortium, headed by her husband Doug Barrowman, was reportedly ‘fast-tracked’ to win Government contracts worth £200 million to supply PPE.

For three years the couple insisted they had no involvement in the firm and would not benefit from the deal. Now it transpires it yielded profits of £60 million that were deposited into a trust with Mone, her children and Barrowman’s children, as beneficiaries.

If ever there was a Sunday morning marmalade dropper, it was Baroness Michelle Mone’s turn on TV. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing

She admitted she’d also lied about lobbying Cabinet Minister Michael Gove — ‘I made the call…’ — to secure the contract

She admitted she’d also lied about lobbying Cabinet Minister Michael Gove — ‘I made the call…’ — to secure the contract.

And yet a defiant Mone told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that the couple — Barrowman was alongside her — had done nothing wrong and ‘there is no case to answer’. In an affected sorrowful voice, she said she’d lied because ‘I was protecting my family’. That’s the same family who stand to benefit from a horrific time when healthcare staff were having to cut up black plastic bin bags to protect themselves on wards, so forgive me for not crying a river over her distress about Press intrusion.

This interview, as jaw- dropping as it was in exposing Mone and Barrowman’s brazen defiance, raised more questions than it answered.

Mone said there was a ‘call to arms for Baronesses, Lords, MPs, senior civil servants to help. Because they needed massive quantities of PPE’.

I was a health minister at the time and this is nonsense. MPs and civil servants don’t make PPE and nor were we qualified to judge who could do so to the required regulatory standard.

I was bombarded with emails and messages from companies offering their services. Every one of them was forwarded on to Public Health England as due process required. We need to know more about that call to Gove, too. Who advised her to ring him and exactly what happened after it.

Given that the Department of Health is pursuing PPE Medpro in a £122 million civil case for ‘breach of contract and unjust enrichment’, MPs need to know how and why taxpayers’ money was being splashed about in this way.

And if Mone and Barrowman made £60 million from their cut of the £200 million contract, what did the other directors of Medpro take? How many of them were there and how much did the contract actually cost to deliver?

During the interview, Barrowman claimed a senior official in the Department of Health said an on-going investigation by the National Crime Agency into procurement deals would be dropped if they were prepared to pay money back. Was this a civil servant, or a Government aide?

On whose instructions did this conversation take place? Barrowman must substantiate his accusation.

But the bigger question is: who put Michelle Mone forward to then prime minister David Cameron to be made a peer in 2015 and why?

This country is full of successful entrepreneurs and they don’t all end up wearing ermine.

In the interview Mone whined that: ‘…since I’ve walked into the House of Lords, it’s been a nightmare for me and my family.’

Well, Michelle, there’s an easy answer to that. Do what Lord Callanan suggested yesterday, walk right back out again. It will be a better place without you.

Hannah’s latest feat… Saving the Variety Show

On Sunday evening I lit the fire and settled down to write my Christmas cards as I watched the Royal Variety Performance, believing I was in for a treat. I wasn’t. 

And if it hadn’t been for Hannah Waddingham belting out O Holy Night with the voice of an angel — is there no end to this woman’s talents? — along with the stellar performances by Cher and Beverley Knight, I’d have switched off. 

These amazing women kept the show on the road because otherwise it was a yawn fest. I struggled to give it three out of ten. 

If it hadn’t been for Hannah Waddingham belting out O Holy Night with the voice of an angel  along with the stellar performances by Cher and Beverley Knight, I’d have switched off

My sympathies lay with Prince William and Kate who were hosts to Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden and Prince Daniel at the event. 

The Waleses smiled gamely as a tuneless Paloma Faith cavorted on stage, occasionally headbutting the glass in what looked like a bus shelter, but they must have been cringing with embarrassment.

The ‘Common List’ topping my Christmas list

I’ve had the good fortune to meet up with esteemed interior designer and socialite, Nicky Haslam, twice at festive parties recently. I feel like he’s my new best friend.

Nicky is the author of the mischief-making, annual Common List — the hobbies, interests, gadgets, food, drink, TV habits, people and even health conditions that are ‘common’ in his eyes.

He prints the list on a tea towel and his 2023 version includes podcasts, Grayson Perry, The Repair Shop and ordering lobster.

It is laugh-out-loud brilliant and a quirky stocking filler but sadly sold out. I’ll be getting my 2024 order in early.

• The robin in my garden is so cheeky that he now taps on the kitchen window when he sees me at the sink. Like many people I take comfort in the belief that a robin’s presence is to remind us of someone we have lost, and at this time of year his visits are especially poignant. And so, still in my PJs, I hurry out to the bird table with the sunflower hearts as he hops down the path behind me for a truly, joyous start to the day.

Nigella’s hot tip just left me cold

Nigella says it doesn’t matter if your Christmas dinner isn’t hot — as long as the plates and gravy are. Well Nigella, it’s important to me!

I am a Christmas dinner perfectionist so I die a little inside if one of my three adult daughters utters the dreaded words ‘Can I do it this year?’

Then I hear the voice of my late husband in my ear; ever indulgent of his girls, he’d have whispered: ‘Let them. It doesn’t matter, they need to learn.’

Nigella says it doesn’t matter if your Christmas dinner isn’t hot — as long as the plates and gravy are

But, it does matter… I don’t want my sprouts cooked in brown butter with chopped chestnuts, thank you. And I like the food to be properly hot, not tepid because someone’s too busy trying out trendy celebrity chef tips.

Timing is everything. I cook the turkey overnight in the Aga and there’s no smell like it on Christmas morning as the eldest and I sneak down to the kitchen before anyone is awake. We lift it out and stand for a moment and, silently, I count my blessings.

And I will be doing the same this year — because I got my bid in first. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

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