The revealing inside account of how Baroness Bra came undone: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews The Rise and Fall of Michelle Mone
The Rise And Fall Of Michelle Mone (BBC2)
Baroness Mone scares people. Nobody says as much, no one turns white at the mention of her name and scuttles away from the camera. But they don't have to.
Michelle Mone is known as Baroness Bra, after building a lingerie business whose biggest product was a brassiere filled with bust-enhancing gel. She was elevated to the House of Lords by David Cameron in 2015.
But it was telling that, during the two-part investigation into her life, The Rise And Fall Of Michelle Mone, not one friend or family member appears in her defence. Neither her current husband Doug Barrowman nor her former husband Michael Mone agrees to be interviewed.
Even former employees insist on anonymity, with their voices disguised. The only person willing to speak up for her Ladyship was her American therapist, Dr Ted Anders, a smooth-skinned man with more teeth than is strictly necessary.
Director Erika Jenkin's documentary builds to an infamous confrontation with the BBC 's Laura Kuenssberg, with the Glasgow businesswoman squirming under questions about the PPE scandal — one stone-faced Scottish blonde charging another with helping herself to an inordinately large slice of the public finances.
Barrowman's company PPE Medpro, which was awarded contracts for medical equipment worth £200 million during the pandemic, has been accused of providing unusable materials, with his wife Baroness Mone and her children standing to benefit from a £29m trust fund.
Despite this, the two-hour programme — both episodes now available on iPlayer — is not an all-out hatchet job.
It stops well short of accusing her of any crime (unless you count 'lying to the media', which Baroness Mone reminds us is perfectly fine).
But she comes across as a thoroughly unpleasant woman: dishonest, bullying, self-obsessed, manipulative and lacking much talent for either business or innovation.
In real life, she might be a lot worse than that, of course. Her former PR man Jack Irvine accuses her of 'massive deluded self-confidence,' and says: 'She had a strange relationship with the truth. It's difficult to work with people who can't be honest.'
That said, I can't help feeling she draws a lot of criticism for a business style that would be more admired if she was a man, particularly a man who went to public school.
Her ambition as a teenager, when she worked as a bikini model, was to be 'the female Richard Branson' — and it's Branson's brash self-confidence that makes him both charismatic and unsinkable.
Mone is roundly criticised for spreading stories that Julia Roberts wore her Ultimo bras, in the film Erin Brockovich. The claim was as fake as an Ultimo cleavage, but so what?
There's a fair bit of snobbery and chauvinism among her critics. But she invites this, by constantly harping on her upbringing in 'Glasgow's East End' and by posing in her own products. All very tacky.
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Telegraph
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The Muslim population, which currently stands at 7 per cent, is estimated to increase to more than one in 10 (11.2 per cent) within the next 25 years and account for one in five (19.2 per cent) of all people in the UK by the end of the century. Prof Goodwin, an honorary professor at Kent University, said the research, based on Office for National Statistics (ONS) and census data, raised 'profound questions about the capacity of the UK state to both absorb and manage this scale of demographic change'. In his report, he said the findings were certain to spark a 'considerable degree of anxiety, concern and political opposition' among many voters who favoured lowering immigration and slowing the pace of change in order to maintain 'the symbols, traditions, culture and ways of life of the traditional majority group'. Prof Goodwin said: 'Their concerns will need to be recognised, respected and addressed if the UK is to avoid considerable political turbulence and polarisation in the years and decades ahead.' His report follows a period of unprecedented legal and illegal migration – hitting a record high of 906,000 under the Tories in 2023 – and subsequent crackdowns including Labour's white paper this month proposing restrictions on the rights of migrants to live, work and study in the UK. He said: 'By the end of the current century, most of the people on these islands will not be able to trace their roots in this country back more than one or two generations. 'By the year 2100, based on our projections, six in 10 people in the UK will not have been born in the UK or born to two UK-born parents. 'This raises enormous questions about the capacity of our country and leaders to unify people around a shared sense of identity, values, ways of life, and culture, and avoid the very real risk of us becoming what Sir Keir Starmer referred to, in May, as ' an island of strangers '.' The research compared ethnic identity, comprising white British, other white groups such as Irish, Gipsy, Roma and other Europeans, and non-white; religious identity of non-Muslim versus Muslim and country of birth comparing UK born with foreign born. It projected populations forward by applying age and sex-specific fertility, mortality and migration rates to a 2022 base population derived from the latest UK census data. These projections were calibrated to the 2022-based ONS national population projections. Foreign-born and Muslim populations were estimated to have higher fertility rates. So, while the UK-born fertility rate was 1.39, it was 1.97 for foreign-born people. For Muslims, it was 2.35, and for non-Muslims 1.54. The research forecasts that white British share of the population will decline from 73 per cent to 44 per cent by the year 2075, and to 33.7 per cent by 2100. The non-white share will increase from 19.7 per cent to 34.8 per cent by 2050, 48.1 per cent by the year 2075 and to 59.3 per cent by 2100. The analysis suggested that the white population including both white British and white other would become a minority of the population in the year 2079. The share of the UK population that is non-Muslim will gradually fall from 93 per cent in 2025 to 88.8 per cent in 2050, to 84.8 per cent by 2075 and then to 80.8 per cent by the year 2100, according to the research. The analysis suggested that the share of the population that is UK-born will fall from 81 per cent to 39 per cent between 2025 and 2100, while the share of the population comprising people born overseas will increase from just above 18 per cent to almost 26 per cent over the same period. When the foreign-born population is combined with their children, the proportion of the projected foreign-born and second-generation population will rise to 33.5 per cent of the overall UK population in 2050, 47.5 per cent by 2075 and 60.6 per cent by 2100, according to the analysis. The report said: 'In other words, by the end of the current century, by the year 2100, based on current trends around six in 10 people in the UK will not have been born in the UK or born to UK-born parents.' Migration is changing Britain beyond all recognition By Matt Goodwin The White British will become a minority group in the UK by the year 2063. The foreign-born and their immediate descendants will become a majority by 2079. And by the end of this century, roughly one in five people will follow the Islamic faith, up from roughly one in 14 today. These are the findings from my latest research report, which builds on Office for National Statistics data to project how the UK population could evolve in the decades ahead. Population projections are notoriously difficult, but using something called the 'cohort-component method', a standard approach in the study of demography, we can project the changes in the UK's population between today and 2100, picking out trends in race and ethnicity, country of birth and religious identity. Our research suggests that unless there is a radical change of policy, the share of the UK population that is white British will fall sharply from just over 70 per cent today to below 34 per cent by the year 2100. They will be a minority in the country in 2063, just 38 years from now. Among the under-40s, the tipping point will come much sooner, in 2050. A child born today, in other words, will be living in what is close to becoming a white British minority country by the time they turn 25. We will also witness profound changes in where people were born. A population where most people can trace their roots on these islands back over multiple generations will make way for one in which a majority were born overseas, or born to at least one parent who were born overseas. The ties to our nation – to its sense of history, culture, ways of life and collective memory – will become much weaker. Between the early 2020s and the end of this century, the share of the UK population comprised of people who were born in the country and who are not the direct offspring of immigrants will collapse from 81 to 39 per cent, according to our research, while the share who are foreign-born or the immediate descendants of the foreign-born will rocket from 33 to 61 per cent. By the end of this century, around six in 10 people in this country will either not have been born in this country or will be the direct descendants of recent immigrants to the country, we found. The foreign-born and their offspring will become a majority in England in 2079, in Wales in 2081, in Scotland in 2093, and in Northern Ireland sometime after 2122, our analysis suggests. And again, this will happen much sooner among the under-40s, with the foreign-born and their descendants becoming a majority among the young in England as early as 2062. Our projections also reveal how the religious identity of the country will be transformed, with the Muslim population surging three-fold from 7 per cent today to over 15 per cent by 2075, and to nearly 20 per cent by 2100. Under a 'high Muslim migration scenario', whereby the UK receives higher than average in-flows from Muslim states, we estimate that one in four British people will be Muslim by the year 2100, rising to nearly one in three of the under-40s in this country. As you'll have noticed, all these demographic projections are more pronounced among the under-40s. Among young people, by the year 2100, whites will only comprise 28 per cent of the population of England while the UK-born who are not the immediate descendants of immigrants will represent just 28 per cent of the English population, a little over one in every four young people. At the end of the century, again among young people, some 68 per cent will be non-White, roughly one in four will be Muslim, and a large majority will have been born to at least one parent who was themselves not born in the UK. Precisely because of the policy of mass immigration, under both the Labour and Tory parties, and which was then turbocharged by the so-called post-2019 ' Boriswave ', the UK is on course to experience huge and historically unprecedented changes in the composition of its population. By the year 2100, and again unless things change, our immediate descendants will be living in a country in which the White British will only comprise one third of the population, people with long and strong roots in this country will only represent around four in every 10 people, down from eight in 10 today, while somewhere between one fifth and one third of all people will follow the Islamic faith. Lastly, it's worth pointing out that while population projections are complex and should be treated with caution, for the last quarter-century the story with these projections has been one of projections and forecasts underestimating, rather than overestimating, the scale and pace of change. What we can say today, with some certainty, is that these islands are about to experience a dramatic population transformation that will not only be unprecedented in history but will also test the state and the social contract like never before. It is high time our political leaders look beyond the short term to try and think just as seriously about the longer-term consequences of their policies. Prof Matt Goodwin is senior visiting fellow at the University of Buckingham and writes at
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BBC News
34 minutes ago
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Kirby announces England retirement before Euros
England attacking midfielder Fran Kirby has announced her retirement from international football with immediate effect before the European an exclusive interview with BBC Sport, Kirby says she is leaving the international scene with her "head held high".The Brighton player, who has 77 caps for the Lionesses, has been a key figure for England for more than a was named in Sarina Weigman's squad for the Uefa Nations League matches against Portugal and Spain but was informed she would not be selected for the Euros starting on 2 her first interview after announcing her retirement, Kirby said: "It is something I have been thinking about for over a year. I knew this was going to be my last major tournament."The plan was to retire after the Euros but after speaking to Sarina I'm not going to make the squad."It was like a dagger to my heart but also a weight off my shoulders all at the same time. It was emotional for both of us but we both respected what each person was saying." The news comes just days after goalkeeper Mary Earps also retired from international football before England attempt to defend their Euros 31, is understood to have informed her England team-mates of the decision after Tuesday's clash against Spain in last England appearance was as a second-half substitute in the 6-0 win over Portugal. She was not named in the matchday squad against former Chelsea player, who is a two-time PFA Women's Footballer of the Year winner, is one of the most recognisable female players in the won seven Women's Super League (WSL) titles and five Women's FA Cup trophies at Chelsea, but she is best remembered for playing a key role in England's historic Euro 2022 started all six of England's games in the tournament, scoring twice, as Wiegman's side lifted the trophy with victory over Germany at Wembley."When I woke up in the morning after telling Sarina, I didn't feel any regret," added Kirby. "That's when I knew I'd made the right decision."I've been on this team for a long time, it's not going to be a shock that it was coming to an end."You get to a certain age and there are some really good youngsters that are coming through." Kirby, who started her career at Reading, scored seven goals in 17 WSL appearances this season as Brighton finished fifth."I've put everything into this and feel like I have had a good domestic year," she said."I've fought hard to be in the Euros squad but unfortunately that's not enough."Kirby has battled with injury issues and illness throughout her career, struggling with fatigue in the build-up to Euro 2022 and missing the 2023 World Cup with a knee injury that required surgery."Everyone knows the injuries that I've had and I've been protecting my body," she said."This is part of that. But I feel like I've got so much to give in football. I'm already looking forward to the domestic season." Kirby's full retirement statement After being in the England team since I was 21, it's time to close that chapter of my life. I didn't ever want this day to come, but I cannot tell you how proud I am it been the biggest honour to represent my country, one that I had only dreamt about as a young girl.I've played with some incredible players, worked with some incredible managers, played in some amazing tournaments and have irreplaceable journey has been full of ups and downs, setbacks and achievements. Enough has been said and written about those, but regardless of whatever was thrown at me, I want you all to know that every time I put on that England badge I gave it 100%.Every single call-up, I accepted my role and did whatever was needed for the team. I wanted England to win. I've always been there to help England mum had a dream of me representing my country and I'm so proud I was able to do that and play in front of you all.I will never, ever forget the noise when my name is read out at a stadium. I was first selected when I was playing in WSL 2, I played a part in the game-changing World Cup, wininng bronze in 2015, creating memories of a in every game and winning the Euros in 2022 was a dream come true, to be part of change in women's football was one of the best experiences I could ever have you to all of you for embracing me as a young girl from Reading who had a dream. I hope you all know that wearing that badge was the greatest every young girl that suffers setbacks, just remember you can. You can. Forever a Lioness, Fran.
