Michelle quits country over trolls – who hurl yet more vicious abuse

WHEN Michelle Mone announced she was leaving Scotland, she said her ‘flourishing career’ was the main reason behind her decision.

But now the Ultimo lingerie tycoon has finally admitted the SNP and its cybernats have played a role in driving her out of the country she loves.

Since coming out in favour of the Union ahead of last year’s referendum, Mone has become the target of a social media ‘hate campaign’.

The 43-year-old said this, along with free speech being ‘crushed’ in an ‘angry and divided’ Scotland and the anti-enterprise attitude of the SNP, meant she could no longer stay.

Writing in The Scottish Mail on Sunday yesterday, she said: ‘The SNP have turned my country into an angry, divided nation and it’s really sad to see. I know other entrepreneurs who feel exactly the same, but are not prepared to say it publicly because they want a quiet life.

‘The SNP’s attitude is if you’ve got money, that’s unacceptable. You should be struggling like everyone else. I wasn’t born into money. I worked my ass off to make a dream come true.’

After giving her support to the No campaign last year, Mone was subjected to vile abuse on Twitter. She claimed the online attacks had got so bad she no longer felt safe living north of the Border.

She said: ‘I found myself caught up in a growing and extremely vitriolic social media hate campaign after becoming one of only a few business leaders to come out in favour of both nations remaining together.

‘For the first time, I didn’t feel safe in Scotland. I was called a ‘c***’, a ‘cow’, a ‘slut’, as well as being told, ‘We’ll come and get you.’

‘The mood has got consistently worse and I now believe that the Scottish National Party’s Scotland is becoming a place consumed by hatred and ill will, a place where free speech is gradually being crushed and enterprise is despised.

‘It’s no wonder then that I no longer wish to live in Scotland.’

Yesterday, after revealing her real reasons for moving to London, Mone was again subjected to online abuse, being called a ‘self-serving liar’ and a ‘hypocrite’.

She said: ‘SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is a smart woman and has been very successful at bringing her party to this point. But she also needs to take control of her MPs and support- ers and bring them into line. She’s allowing them to behave like this.

‘These new MPs are acting more like primary school kids who suddenly find themselves at university. With their smirking and sly digs about the Queen and how Westminster is run, it is disrespectful. I’m embarrassed by their behaviour.’

Mone, who grew up in the East End of glasgow, promised to keep the headquarters of Ultimo in East kilbride, Lanarkshire.

It is still not clear if her children – Rebecca, 22, Declan, 18, and 15-yearold Bethany – will be joining her in England.

‘I no longer wish to

live in Scotland’

WILLIAM Hague was retiring at 54 to wr it e books, we were previously told. Now we hear the former Tory leader and Foreign Secretary is joining Teneo, a bigbucks New York-based consultancy firm which has employed those highly respected ex-public servants Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

‘How is the public interest served by ex-ministers taking the skills and insider knowledge they gained in government and flogging them to private interest?’ wonders Tamasin Cave, of pressure group Spinwatch.

Not shy of stating the obvious, Ms Cave adds: ‘ There is a reason why companies hire outgoing ministers. It has become another way of buying influence.’

But is there genuine public disquiet about ex-politicians making their fortunes in retirement by ‘advising’ big companies and in some cases governments? If so, it is not mentioned by politicians themselves.

A few obscure Left- wing MPs protest from time to time, but I can’t think of a single prominent politico from any major party who has made an issue out of the self-enrichment schemes of retired colleagues.

Hague has friends across the political spectrum. As a former Foreign Secretary, he has made excellent business contacts internationally.

Thanks to his support for Hollywood star Angelina Jolie’s campaign against the sexual abuse of women in war zones, he has also established himself in America, where the hiring of big-name politicos by business firms is uncontroversial.

Tony Blair’s first big post-No 10 job was with a U.S. bank, J.P. Morgan. He has gone on to make a great fortune from speeches and advice to foreign regimes, some of them considered unsavoury in terms of their human rights abuses.

He and his wife Cherie are considered the UK’s equivalent of the King a nd Queen of post- political cashing-in, Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Since l eaving office in 2001, ex-President Bill has made $82.8 million (more than £53 million) giving speeches and advising big business.

AFTER retiring as U. S. Secretary of State last year, his wife made $10.2 million (£6.4 million) from giving 45 speeches, most of them to companies which lobby the U.S. Congress for favours. Time magazine comments: ‘Being a private citizen allowed her to hang out a shingle [start her own business], offering to make speeches for six-figure pay cheques from companies and associations with lobbyists working on federal issues that are certain to confront Clinton should she re- enter public life by winning the White House in 2016.’

Hague isn’t in the Clinton league, nor that of Tony Blair. And we can be reasonably s ure t he l i keable Yorkshireman won’t involve himself with disreputable regimes or dodgy companies. But isn’t it a pity he has to go down this road, which encourages the cynical view that politicians ‘are in it for all they can get?’

David Cameron let it be known before winning the General Election that he would not seek another term in No 10.

Might he in addition find an opportunity to reassure us that he won’t be using the experience and contacts he’s made in government — and the knowledge of how it all works — to launch himself as Blair Mark 2? And, that he thinks colleagues, likewise, should resist this temptation?

Surely we all have a right to share the knowledge and expertise which ministers accrued in public service. It must be wrong for it to be used so that companies, or foreign regimes, benefit.

Shouldn’t our great seats of learning, including Cameron’s own alma maters, Eton and Oxford, invite former PMs, ministers and MPs to share the knowledge they’ve gained in public office with the young men and women who aspire to go into politics?

We’ve always been told that young people are cynical about government, thinking Parliament is a private, members- only club masquerading as a public service.

Small wonder when they see Prime Ministers and ministers mis-using their time there to make themselves rich at our expense.