Bra tsar’s six Jag jaunts in just a month
Lingerie tycoon Michelle Mone is fast discovering that the cut and thrust of the boardroom is a picnic compared to Westminster politics. This week, the multi-millionaire found herself under attack after boasting she’d been given a taxpayer-funded, chauffeur-driven, government Jaguar while she writes a report for ministers on small businesses.
She branded the criticism ‘unfair’, claiming that she is working unpaid for 50 days on the review for iain Duncan Smith’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and had only used the car for a s hort journey from her London home to euston station.
However, my spies insist that the incident was far from a one-off.
According to a DWP source, since Mone’s appointment as business tsar just last month, she has used the Jag — which is usually used by IDS — no fewer than half a dozen times.
On top of that, she has also apparently gained a reputation in the department for being ‘ a difficult passenger’. On one occasion, i am told she visited the Lords and caused a stir by showing too much cleavage.
Lady Mone of Mayfair, worth £20 million thanks to her Ultimo bra business, was controversially given a Tory peerage last month as a reward for her backing for the Union in the independence referendum.
As part of her small business tsar brief, she has been given the job of travelling around the country speaking to anyone from ex- convicts to single parents about setting up their own companies.
earlier this week, she posted a boastful picture of the interior of the government car, which prompted an angry response from Twitter users, with one writing: ‘Are you teaching folk that once you make lots of money, it’s a great laugh to waste taxpayers’ money?’
Another said he was blocked after questioning why ‘Michelle Mone, who claims to be a millionaire, needs a taxpayer-funded Jaguar?’.
A DWP spokesman said a pool car arrangement was introduced in 2012 to reduce costs. He said that ‘the car was not required by a minister’ and was ‘offered to Michelle Mone for use in connection with legitimate government business’.