BARONESS BRA BITES BACK
She’s accused of cashing in on her title and called ‘Lady Layabout’ for missing Lords’ votes. But in this scathing response, lingerie queen Michelle Mone says it’s HER work ethic that shames fellow peers — and reveals how her old-fashioned values bagged h
Baroness Mone of Mayfair has had just about enough of ‘being picked on’ (her words). Layabout Lady of Mayfair. Baroness Bra, of course. The less than noble nicknames have come thick and fast since David Cameron made her a life peer in 2015.
Lady Mone (‘Michelle, please,’ she insists) stands accused of swanning around making the most of her title without putting in any hard graft.
SNP critics have called for her to resign, complaining that she attended just 89 sitting days since entering the House out of 457 up until June 2017, missed debates on important issues, including a key vote on Britain’s withdrawal from europe.
she’s been condemned for using her parliamentary email for private businesses and posters containing her title to promote her business ventures at trade events. Michelle, founder of the £40million lingerie empire Ultimo, has, until now, not responded to her critics.
Finally, though, as she finds herself in the headlines once more following Lord speaker norman Fowler’s recent calls for the House to get rid of peers who ‘contribute little to political life’ but still get £305-a-day tax-free allowance for turning up in the chamber, she’s decided to speak out. Clearly, a nerve has been touched.
‘Those who call me Layabout Lady of Mayfair don’t know me,’ she storms. ‘I was up at 5.30am. I’ll be working all day and then I’ll go to the Lords. I’ll be doing that all week, apart from Friday. If there’s a vote I won’t be home until maybe 2am. How can I be a layabout?
‘What’s lazy is someone who can work but doesn’t want to, lying about on state benefits watching daytime TV. I’ve not sat on my backside taking from others. I’ve actually got up off my backside and worked hard and sacrificed so many things and . . .’
Crikey, Michelle is working up a... well, let’s say rather unladylike head of steam. as she points out, there are few women in the country who began from nothing and built a multi-million-pound business from their bedroom without an exam to their name.
and many women clearly see her as inspirational, if the numbers which turn up to her motivational speeches are anything to go by.
It’s just ... how to put it? Her attendance record in the House isn’t quite as inspirational. ‘Why am I always singled out in the Lords for my attendance record?’ she says. ‘I’m not and have never claimed to be a full-time Baroness. I’m a full-time entrepreneur but I take my House of Lords commitment very seriously.
‘When David Cameron phoned to offer me a life peerage, I was so honoured but said: “I don’t know if I can do that. I need to remain an entrepreneur, but I’ll do my very best to give as much time to the House of Lords as I can.”
‘He said: “of course you do. Do your very best and do what you can.” Maybe he wanted me to sit in the Lords because I was a bit different to many of the other baronesses and lords. He knew I was passionate about this country.
‘I love scotland so much, but I also love the UK. I believe in the Union. Maybe it was because of my passion, or because I was younger and was a woman that he wanted me there. What I do know is my voting record is up there with any other full-time entrepreneurs in the Lords.’
So WHAT are the facts? a look at the hugely respected Public Whip website, which publishes voting records from the Commons and the Lords, shows Michelle attended 31 votes which is one more than Lord sugar’s assistant on BBC1’s apprentice, Baroness Brady. Lord sugar himself attended none.
‘I’m proud to be a Baroness,’ Michelle says. ‘It’s an honour.’
When asked if she uses her title she said: ‘of course, that’s my name the same way if someone was a doctor. It’s my title on my emails, passport, on my driving licence, on everything — just as someone who becomes a lord uses their title. But I don’t abuse my position.
‘every single penny of my £305 allowance goes to charity. I’m actually thousands and thousands of pounds out of pocket for attending the Lords. I employ two Pas now. one to deal with my Lords emails and one for my other businesses.
‘I try to juggle everything as best as I can just like everyone else. There is so much more that goes on in the Lords than people think. If you don’t go into the chamber your presence isn’t recorded and I’ve been there so much more than the attendance records show.
‘I go to various meetings outside the chamber about the debates that might be coming up or to discuss my ideas on business, entrepreneurialism, the NHS. My presence is really felt there. I know that and so do others.
‘so, why am I demonised?’ she looks bewildered — pretty cross, too. ‘The truth is I am a woman who is a full-time entrepreneur.’
Michelle has recently become engaged to scots billionaire businessman Doug Barrowman. ‘I am a mother of three [Doug has four children from two earlier marriages and Michelle has three children from her 20-year marriage to Michael Mone, with whom she built her lingerie empire].
‘I have just moved house. I’ve been looking after my mother who has breast cancer and I’ve still voted more times than many of the men who are entrepreneurs.’
Michelle is visibly upset. Her mother Isobel was diagnosed just five weeks before Christmas.
It was a terrible shock for Michelle, who cannot imagine a life without her mum. ‘she’s always been there for me and my dad [who suffers with a rare degenerative spinal condition and has been in a wheelchair for 32 years]. The thought of him not having my mum to look after him is . . .’
The sentence ends in a heavy silence. she shakes her head.
‘It was a shock. I went into complete crisis business mode and told my mum to pack her bags, she was coming to London for medical appointments and gave her an itinerary.
‘It sounds horrible — not personal at all — but inside I was thinking: “This is a complete disaster. I’m not going to sit about and mope.” obviously, my mum was very tearful as we were seeing
people. She was crying down the phone when she called my dad, which was making him more sick.
‘So, I said: “Right, Mum, if you call Dad again and you’re crying or you cry with another consultant I’m not coming with you. You can do the meetings yourself, OK?”
‘It was my way of trying to get her to be positive. Suddenly, this strength came out in her. She’d get up in the morning with a lightness and say: “What appointments are we going for today?’’ ’
A fortnight before Christmas, Isobel underwent a single mastectomy at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital. Following the operation, Michelle, 47, cared for her in the Mayfair home she recently moved into with Doug, 53, her partner of two-and-a-half years. She attended two votes in the House during this hectic, horrible time.
We meet in her seven-storey Georgian townhouse, where Doug proposed to her on Christmas Eve. She didn’t see it coming.
‘It was so romantic — a total shock,’ she says. Michelle, who sold her lingerie company four years ago following an acrimonious split from her first husband, has a sort of I-can’t-believe-how-blessed-I-am look on her face.
‘I’m a completely different person than the one who sold Ultimo four years ago. Back then, I was like a student.
‘Now I’ve graduated and I’m a global entrepreneur with a skill set. When my marriage ended it took me a long time to get over it.’
Michelle was distraught when she suspected her husband was having an affair with her designer, who lived in their guest house. Her husband always denied cheating on her, but is now married to the woman in question.
‘We had three kids and a business together. The whole divorce thing, I hate talking about it now because I’m so over it, but at the time I was broken, lost.
‘He dealt with all the money, all of the legal stuff for Ultimo. I did the design side and the PR and marketing. He always said: “You’d be nothing without me. You’ll end up back in the ghetto where I rescued you from.” I don’t think where I’m from is the ghetto.’
Michelle worked her way out of the East End of Glasgow. ‘The people there are incredible, but the bedroom, lounge and kitchen I grew up in was the size of this whole room.
‘I can’t tell you how tough the divorce was — the hurt, the pain, everything. I used to go to bed with my head numb from drinking and get up to fight another day.’
In her autobiography, Michelle apologised for the ‘woman I became’, confessing she put her ex-husband’s cufflinks in the bin, let down his tyres and poured cold water on his side of the bed.
‘Suddenly I thought, “Oh my God. I’m either going to get worse or I’m going to survive.” I started fighting harder and began to reinvent myself.’
Michelle stopped drinking during the week and bought Michael out of Ultimo and the family home near Glasgow. In 2014, she sold her interest in Ultimo for a reported £20 million. ‘I thought of retiring. Then, all these other opportunities came up and I haven’t looked back.’
ONE of those opportunities included an investment in a tech company in which Doug, too, was an investor. They met at a shareholders’ dinner in exclusive Mayfair club 5 Hertford Street and found they’d grown up three miles apart in Glasgow.
‘We ended up in Tramp nightclub — not dancing, just chatting. We had so much in common.’
Doug, founder and chairman of Knox Group of Companies, worth £3 billion, has six homes, two superyachts, and 15 cars.
‘I’ve never really gone for the money guys,’ she says. ‘In fact, they scare me because I’m very independent. I think that’s why we were just friends for a while.
‘After just under two months I was invited out on his superyacht. Every night, my cabin door would get locked. After we came home, we remained friends. Then, there was one night when he was getting too friendly, and I said I just wanted us to be friends.
‘He said: “I don’t want that.” One thing led to another and we’ve never been apart since. I love him so much. He’s very quiet, like me. He doesn’t like going out. We’re from the same background, the same family upbringing.
‘He works so hard. He gets up early in the morning. He trains. He does yoga. He’s just a really, really caring family guy. He asked me to move in the first month after that night. I said: “Let’s wait a while.”
‘I kept flying to his house on the Isle of Man. I was sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms. He said: “I don’t want you to go home. I want you to move in and stay here. Let this be your home.” That was it.
‘A few months later, in January 2017, we were walking by the marina in Dubai. I always carried a stone one of my Greek friends had given me in 2012. It had a Greek symbol on it in metal and they said: “This stone will always look after you.” I always kissed it before I went to bed. It was my rock.
‘Doug said that day, “I think you should get rid of your rock because I’m your rock. I’m here to look after you so let’s throw it into the water together.” We did.’
Doug is besotted with Michelle. It is he who suggested the app she is introducing to mentor people, for free, around the world which launches today.
‘Doug attended one of my speeches and saw how, when I’d finished, so many people came to the stage to try to talk to me and ask for advice. You try to help as many people as you can, but you only have so much time.
The app includes videos, articles and advice on everything from how to visualise success and to how to secure investment.
‘I started up Ultimo in my bedroom,’ says Michelle. ‘I want to show people this little girl from the East End who grew up with no bath, no shower, no qualifications can actually go from there and take on world business. I want to show them it doesn’t matter if you grew up without the best education, or money in your pocket.
‘If you really stick in, if you’re really passionate and really true to yourself you can make it. You . . .’ She thinks for a moment. ‘Next week, Mum will be back here to get her test results. We’ll find out whether or not she’ll need chemotherapy. These are the things that matter and it’s my family and close friends who really know me — know how much I do.
‘I’d just like to see anybody who calls me the Layabout Lady of Mayfair try walking in my shoes for a day.’
MICHELLE MONE’S business app, Connect 2 Michelle Mone, is FREE from the App Store.