Michelle Mone is ashamed the Tories didn't protect her

SPARE a thought for the real victim of the Covid pandemic. Michelle Mone has suffered like no other.

Truly, she is a veritable modern Joan of Arc. All she wanted to do was to make a quick profit by leveraging her contacts in the Tory party to turn a quick buck on PPE equipment for the NHS during the pandemic.

As Mone emoted during her company produced documentary released on YouTube last week, lots of other Tories were doing it, yet she's been the one who was singled out. It's all so terribly unfair.

In the martyrology of the church in the near future, we can expect to see Saint Michelle of Medpro added to the list of those who suffered for a noble cause. In Mone's case that noble cause was making herself and her husband even richer. Mone is a martyr for unfettered capitalism.

In the hour long moanathon, apparently paid for by her husband's company, a windswept Mone does her best impression of the traumatised survivor of a terrible tragedy, compelled to offer her truth as a warning and service for others.

She also insisted in - what we are supposed to call a documentary - that the government was aware all along of her links to PPE Medpro, although that didn't prevent her from engaging lawyers to send legal threats to journalists who had exposed her involvement with the company.

Don't expect this hagiography to examine that particular contradiction.

Mone tells us, choking back the emotion, that she is now ashamed of being a Conservative peer. She tells us she made a "simple error" when she denied to the press that she had any contacts with the PPE Medpro company owned by her now husband, Doug Barrowman.

READ MORE: Furious Alister Jack says Scottish ministers must follow Foreign Office rules

The company is currently being sued by the government over an alleged breach of contract because around £122 millions' worth of medical gowns in the £203 million contract were found to be faulty. It's all so terribly unfair.

She's not ashamed to be a Conservative peer because of the havoc the Tories have wrought on public services, their demonisation of benefits claimants and immigrants, their dalliance with far right authoritarianism. No, the real crime of this woeful Conservative regime is its failure to protect Mone from the consequences of her own actions.

There are reports in the press today that police have interviewed Mone and her husband under caution as part of their investigation into allegations of conspiracy to defraud, fraud by false representation and bribery. Mone and her husband deny all allegations against them and insist they have done nothing wrong.

MPs have started debating the Conservative government's new Rwanda bill.

Rishi Sunak hopes the bill can overcome the legal objections of the UK Supreme Court, which found in its ruling last month that the plan was in breach of international human rights law. It also concluded that Rwanda was not a safe country to which to send refugees and asylum seekers.

The essence of the new bill is an assertion that Rwanda IS a safe country - making it a matter of law in the UK that Rwanda is a safe country irrespective of, you know, facts and reality.

The bill is morally repugnant, a reality denying exercise in performative cruelty which Sunak hopes can appease the baying mob of far-right authoritarian bigots on the Tory back benches. They have already signalled their opposition to this insane and cruel bill on the grounds that it's not insane and cruel enough.

There is a very real chance that the bill could fail to pass, which would call Sunak's teetering leadership even further into question.

Rebel Tories from the party's frothing fascist faction were reported over the weekend to be planning an "advent calendar of sh*t" aimed at making Sunak's leadership untenable.

READ MORE: Rishi Sunak hosts breakfast with would-be rebel MPs ahead of crunch Rwanda vote

One suggestion, which was being aired by Tory MPs speaking to the Mail and Telegraph newspapers, is that a Johnson ally, such as former Home Secretary Priti Patel, could be installed as a caretaker Prime Minister until the next election.

This would be on the understanding that Johnson would stand for a Tory safe seat at the election, and would return to Number 10. The right of the party is so detached from reality that they believe this could win them the next election, or at least make it impossible for Starmer to win a comfortable majority.

The same rebels are also promoting the idea of giving Nigel Farage and Richard Tice, the leader of the far-right Reform party, places in the Lords and key ministerial positions in a bid to appeal to naked racism.

It is a sign of how unhinged and dangerously extreme right that the Tories have become that there is a significant body of Conservative MPs who take this plan seriously and who want to bring far right figures into the heart of government.

Let's call it what it is, this is British nationalist fascism, and Keir Starmer's Labour party is going to do nothing to change the structures of an undemocratic and dysfunctional Westminster system which enables this kind of dangerous nonsense.

The Commons vote is expected to take place this evening.

An asylum seeker has died on the Bibby Stockholm barge

The barge - being used by the British Government to house asylum seekers - has been at the centre of controversy ever since the government first announced plans to use it to house asylum seekers

Police in Dorset confirmed that they were dealing with a reported sudden death on the barge on Tuesday morning. The incident is understood to involve a suicide. The age and country of origin of the person involved are not yet known.

In September, asylum seekers being housed there had to be evacuated after the deadliest strain of legionella was found on board. The barge's water system had to be flushed in order to eliminate the bacteria, which can cause a potentially lethal respiratory disease.

READ MORE: Council fury as David Cameron's Foreign Office to quit East Kilbride

More evidence promises of Better Together were worthless

It t has been announced that the UK Foreign Office offices in East Kilbride are to be closed, with hundreds of staff being relocated.

Staff currently based in Abercrombie House in East Kilbride will be relocated to central Glasgow. HMRC is expected to take over the building in 2025. Local council officials reportedly first heard about the plans by reading about them in a real estate magazine.

Collette Stevenson, the MSP for East Kilbride, expressed anger with the UK Government for having promised more jobs for the area and described the plan as a "hammer blow to our town and local economy".