Sunday 17 December 2023

The Sunday Ishmael: 17/12/2023


You'd think, with all his money, that chubby hubby, Doug TummyBellyBarrowman could afford to buy a shirt and jacket combination to cover his straining hairy paunch. But maybe the infamous "advisers" alluded to by Baroness Moan in the Laura Kuenssberg Show this morning suggested he appear on telly looking fat and poor all the better to personify  the couple's chosen victim identity. Those "advisers" presumably were the same ones that instructed the Baroness to lie through her teeth about not having any  personal advantage  from the two massively generous PPE contracts awarded by the government in 2020 - the first contract valued at £80.85 million for the supply of  210 million facemasks, the second  valued at £122 million  for the supply of 25 million surgical gowns. Both contracts were awarded without competitive tenders under the Covid-19 emergency regulations that waived normal requirements. The Baroness told Laura that she phoned Michael Gove and said she could help out. Matt Hancock, au contraire, Minister for Health at the time, described her lobbying as being extraordinarily aggressive and threatening. Despite repeated, emphatic, consistent  and determined denials through their lawyers, turns out that the beneficiary of these contracts, PPE Medpro Ltd., is a company close to the heart and wallet of Chubby Hubby TummyBellyBorrowman. Last month, a representative acting for Barrowman confirmed that half the money required upfront was "provided by the Family Office of Doug Barrowman", part of the Knox firm ultimately controlled by Barrowman which manages his private wealth. The representative also said that Barrowman "was the chairman and leader of the PPE Medpro consortium that supplied the UK government”. And £60 million is the profit that is sitting in the coffers of the Knox Firm - at least, until the Government enquiry and police investigations have concluded and the Covid profiteers have had their unholy profits (or returns on a high risk investment, as Chubby Hubby put it) sequestered by the State.
They can't have done themselves any favours, Mr. and Mrs. Mone- Barrowman, with their stage-managed interview with Laura. Despite their determination to present themselves as innocent victims of something or other,  inadvertent glimpses  into their tortuously complicated financial arrangements were revealed. "It's not my money, its his. If he divorced me or died, I wouldn't have any money, because its his." 
"No, there's no yacht. What Yacht?"  

The one you posted a picture of yourself aboard - the Lady M, For Fuck's Sake.
The Baroness, a creature of Baron Call Me Dave, has form for mendaciousness and dodgy practice. Basically a pushy Weegie, a 15 year old school leaver with no qualifications, Mone, by her own admission, invented qualifications to secure a marketing job with the Labatt brewing company. She was subsequently made redundant. Mone's company, MJM International paid a substantial sum of money into a controversial tax avoidance scheme, criticised by then- Chancellor George Osborne as "morally repugnant". It had to be bad for Bukkake George to find it repugnant. Mone said she had "not done anything wrong" in relation to tax avoidance and that her ex-husband had "dealt with all the finance". Seems both her husbands are a bit nifty with the cash.
What else? Oh, yes,  in 2006 MJM entered the weight loss market, with Mone promoting a weight loss pill called Trim Secrets,  falsely claiming the  product had been proven in clinical trials. However, when questioned further, she said that approximately 60 users had completed a questionnaire but she was unable to produce the results. A spokesman for the British Dietetic Association said "there is no scientific basis or rationale for these products, they are making claims which are unfounded and feeding into public confusion." Could try giving ChubbyHubby the Trim pills.

Anything else? 
  • An  incomplete £250 million residential development in Dubai, 
  • a bitcoin disaster, 
  • milking her baronetcy for publicity purposes whilst hardly ever showing up in the Lords - By early 2022, Mone had made only five speeches in the House of Lords and asked 22 written questions. In December 2022, her spokesperson said she was taking a leave of absence from the House of Lords with immediate effect "in order to clear her name of the allegations  that have been unjustly levelled against her". She had not spoken in a debate since March 2020 and had last voted in April 2022.
Then there's the Employment Tribunals:
  • Hugh McGinley settled out of court with MJM after making a claim of constructive dismissal. He told a tribunal hearing in 2014: “If staff got on the wrong side of Michelle Mone, their lives would be made hell.”
  • Scott Kilday, operations director at MJM International, had his office bugged and Mone  listened to the tapes for signs of disloyalty. He won his case for unfair dismissal in 2014 and was awarded £15,920 in compensation.  Employment judge Shona MacLean said: “The fact a recording device was placed in his office was, in the tribunal’s view, conduct likely to destroy or seriously damage the degree of trust and confidence an employee is entitled to have in his employer.”

  • In 2006, Claire Woods was awarded £10,680 in compensation for discrimination against her  on the basis of her pregnancy. 

  • Mone's  former office manager Mark Ali lodged his claim with the Employment Tribunal alleging  bullying , harassment, sexual discrimination and failure to pay wages.
But what about the 25 million surgical gowns? Not fit for purpose. Never been worn. Stored away on rather a lot of shelves somewhere.
Just can't fault Baron Call Me Dave's ability to pick a wrong 'un.
What could he have seen in her?

Malapropism Contest

Nobody had a go at this contest, which is a big disappointment, cos I think they are funny. They are both the inadvertent invention of mr ishmael's dyslexic assistant, who was keen on well-known phrases or sayings to add colour to his every-day speech, but inevitably got them tangled up. They entered the lexicography of our family and I've almost forgotten the correct phrases. Anyway,  here are the answers:
It's back to Square Peg One. This is a neat amalgamation of square peg in a round hole and back to square one. The meaning of being a square peg in a round hole is that of person whose character makes them unsuitable for the job or other position they are in: however, those familiar with pegged furniture know that a square peg in a round hole usually secures a snug fit, as the peg, or wedge, well-soaked prior to insertion by way of a mallet, will, on drying out, hold things together in a most satisfactory way. Meanings often shift in this way. Take "bodger" for example - these days a bodger is  someone who makes a mess of things, whereas a bodger used to be a skilled craftsperson who made chair legs. "Sophisticated" now means "having, revealing, or involving a great deal of worldly experience and knowledge of fashion and culture:"
It used to mean a sly liar - like sophistry



It takes a Cat to Scratch a Mackerel.
This one is sheer delight - the correct phrase is: it takes a sprat to catch a mackerel, the meaning being that you have to sacrifice a little fish to catch a big fish.



Cry God for England, Harry and St. George!

In other matters, turns out Harry was right and Mirror Group Newspapers are a bad lot. He's been awarded £140,600 in damages  after the judgement ruled that several articles were the product of hacking or unlawful information gathering. 
His lawyer read out his triumphant statement, announcing that it was a Great Day For Truth. Careful, Harry - it rather puts one in mind of Jonathon Aitken's sword of truth; and it really didn't end well for him:
"If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play, so be it. I am ready for the fight. The fight [is] against falsehood and those who peddle it. My fight begins today. Thank you and good afternoon."
This is why Aitken took up his trusty sword - on 10 April 1995, The Guardian carried a front-page report on Aitken's dealings with leading Saudis. The story was the result of a long investigation carried out by journalists from the newspaper and from Granada Television's World in Action programme. The Guardian also alleged Aitken, when Minister for Defence Procurement, procured prostitutes for Arab businessmen. Granada's World in Action programme repeated the accusation in a television documentary called Jonathan of Arabia.  Aitken  called a press conference at the Conservative Party offices in London, at 5 p.m. that same day denouncing the claims and demanding that the World in Action documentary, which was due to be screened three hours later, withdraw them. 
 The documentary was transmitted and Aitken sued. The case collapsed in June 1997 (a month after he had lost his seat in the 1997 general election) when The Guardian and Granada produced, via their counsel George Carman QC, evidence countering his claim that his wife, Lolicia Aitken, paid for the hotel stay at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The evidence consisted of airline vouchers and other documents showing that his wife had, in fact, been in Switzerland at the time when she had allegedly been at the Ritz in Paris. The joint Guardian/Granada investigation indicated an arms deal scam involving Aitken's friend and business partner, the Lebanese businessman Mohammed Said Ayas, a close associate of Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia. It was alleged that Aitken had been prepared to have his teenage daughter Victoria lie under oath to support his version of events, had the case continued. Aitken was charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice and, after pleading guilty on 8 June 1999 to both offences, was sentenced to jail for 18 months of which he served almost seven months. 
You've just got to be careful when you take to the law. Here's mr ishmael on the notorious Aitken, in an essay from the latest anthology curated by editor mr verge, Flush Test.



Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced former Tory cabinet minister who was jailed for perjury, will be rehabilitated into the political frontline tomorrow when he takes charge of a task force on prison reform that will help formulate Conservative policy. the Guardian, Nov 11, 2007 

You don’t imagine, do you, that Aitken knows anything about the real hardship faced by ordinary people who land on the Go To Jail square, who lose their homes and families, come out without a pot to piss in? This is just a way back into the corridors of power and greed. Do you really think that Aitken’s self-publicity about writing letters for cons qualifies him to pronounce on penal reform? (None of them, you know, can write, or tie up their shoe-laces without some bent, corrupt-in-the-blood toff like Aitken extending the hand of phony christian charity, miserable fucking self-aggrandising Godless heathen bastard.) Some poor bastard who’s had a lifetime of kickings from the screws, thrown out time after time with a hundred quid to build a new life and family and home, maybe he might have something useful to say. Upper class penal reformers like The Howard League and the unlamented Home Office sycophants at NACRO have succeeded in keeping the nick much as it was in the days of the Victorian penitentiary, only without the penitence. Another cunt like Aitken poncing a position and a wholly undeserved public voice on the backs of the poor, the lost and the mentally ill who constitute a large part of the jail population will help ensure things stay much as they are. The remedy to the prison crisis is straightforward enough for anyone with the political will. Legalise drugs and cut more than half of crime at a stroke. Even the cops say this is overdue. Employ graduates in the nick - as in the probation and social services - for those who must be incarcerated and whom we really don’t want to reoffend on release. Properly resource the probation service after a decade of it being fucked about by populist clowns like Himmler Straw and the mouthy gabshite Blunkett. Devise meaningful and productive community sentences for lesser offences and do some of this fucking “investment” that the mad cunt Brown blethers about in mental health services. Stop using the nicks as cheap hospitals for disturbed people. 
There. Job done. Remedy from Polish plumber. Perhaps Mr Nit-Picking Fucking Anonymous will forward it to Ian and Duncan Smith’s Independent Think Tank, in which it will, no doubt, promptly fucking drown. Aitken has done his time, and given his breach of trust and his cynical use of his own children, a custodial sentence was quite appropriate. He shouldn’t be further punished but his crimes were so fucking obnoxious, so absolutely inexcusable by hardship or illness or need or disadvantage that he has no business pronouncing or “advising” on public policy. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is, as the great Polish playwright says, honoured more in the breach than the observance. Exclusions abound and it is virtually meaningless; it is nigh on impossible for a former convict to have a normal life ever again and this may be, in the scheme of things, understandable and even proper. What is not understandable or proper, however, is Lord Jeffrey Arsehole and the arsonist Lord Mike Watson* of Scotland retaining seats in the legislature, or the lying cunt Aitken being involved, at any level, in something as important as penal reform - and in whatever else he most assuredly hopes it will lead him to, the vile bastard. 

* Baron Watson of Invergowrie was expelled from the Labour Party in 2005 when he was imprisoned for setting fire to the curtains in an Edinburgh hotel’s reception following the Scottish Politician of the Year Awards. (Gotta say it : honest, not invent.) Readmitted to the Party in 2012; made Labour spokesman on Education in the Lords by Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. - (editor verge)

This, and much, much more can be found in the four-volume Call Me Ishmael oeuvre, collected by editor mr verge.



Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.
Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps :
please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.
Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr
Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.
With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.

It's the Scottish Budget on Tuesday. Hope they can afford to buy these chaps some underwear.

17 comments:

inmate said...

What could he have seen in her?
Typical modern slut, a vorderman, plastic, inky an probly piercings in intimate places. By the time it’s seventy it’ll look like a burst, melting whoopee cushion with tits.
They, Mone and her fat bastard hubby, really didn’t give a shit that they’d ripped of the taxpayer, to the tune 200 million quids.
“Oh,I was just protecting my family” and fuck the taxpayers eh? Whatever, fuckin slapper.

mrs ishmael said...

Aye, right, mr inmate, no inner beauty there, no refinement of spirit, no gracious kindness to those less fortunate - just rapacious, mendacious, social climbing cuntishness. But did you clock the photo at the head of my post? She's only 52, and the hard nastiness already is marking her features, marring her skin, thickening her expression. We get the faces we deserve. Do you remember Mr Bennet, from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice? "(Mr. Bennet), captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour, which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her."
It was, no doubt, his sorrow that he had not arrived at his contempt for her before his passion had fathered five children upon her.
No doubt TummyBellyBorrowman is similarly regretting where his cock has led him.

Bungalow Bill said...

Lovely quote, Mrs I. What a hard, refreshing mind she had.

Mike said...

I would bet Ms Moan supplies bras and knickers, and other "exotic garments", to most "honorable members" of both Houses? And have all their credit and mailing details? Only natural she be made a Baroness, so she can offer BOGOFs directly to the "honorable" members, and expedite supply.

mrs ishmael said...

I wish the Baroness, or anyone, really, would supply all these kilted scotsmen with some knickers, mr mike. One is quite dismayed by the thought of all those smeary bottom juices left on park benches - and you'd not want to buy a second hand car from a kilt wearer.

mrs ishmael said...

Thank you, mr bungalow bill. Jane is always to be relied upon for a snide remark.

Yardarm said...

I'm willing to bet Gideon Osborne persuaded Dave Posh Bastard to give her a peerage because wore her products every single day. Pallid creep Gideon always struck me as not just a flagellant and coke snorter but a secret transvestite.

Mike said...

Mr Yardarm: there will be those who wear her stuff and others who want to see her wearing her stuff. Win-win.

mongoose said...

Smut aside, if I got a 200 mil contract off my mate for bits of tat which arguably were not required but were simply made required by the "nudging" of the very same cabal of fuckers and their underlings, I would now be in jail! And quite right too!

inmate said...

Must be something to do with being in authority and Scotchish, that removes the conscience n any guilt.

mrs ishmael said...

During all my years as a Probation Officer, I never came across an offender who said it was all his own fault, that he'd squandered his fine free education and ruined his parents' hopes, that he had sinned against God and man and deserved to be punished. Nope, every last one of them a victim in their own estimation and that it was cruelly unfair and discriminatory that they had been caught. Baroness Mone is an examplar of that completely narcissistic personality disorder. Not so much Scotchish, as Weegie. Weegies are short, skinny, ratlike, cunning, nasty-tongued, foul-mouthed, driven by grievance, sex-obsessed and impotent - typical city denizens. Highlanders, by contrast, are big, stupid, doomed and belligerent. Islanders tend to be pished.
Anyway, the Mone-Barrowmen may well be going to jail. They are under multiple investigations. It isn't over until its over, so don't despair of justice catching up with them, mr mongoose.

inmate said...

I’d be very, very surprised and yes pleased if the Mone creature was prosecuted and found guilty, however, it will only receive a fine or community service, whereas it should be flogged and spend the rest of it’s miserable existence in solitary.
What I would like to see is who the fuck was paid £37 billion, yes billion for the track and trace system which never got off the ground, never mind worked.

Mike said...

Indeed Mr inmate. That "track 'n trace" thingy that failed miserably, at unbelievable cost, and I know a lot about IT and this kind of stuff, was incredible. I seem to remember some consultancy or outsourcing firm was involved, changing thousands per day for call center staff to answer phones that didn't ring. All been memory holed.

Its not just Ms Moan who was on the gravy train.

mongoose said...

Just to put that into context, 37 billion pounds is about 500 quid for every man, woman and child in the country. A man can buy a perfectly serviceable smartphone for 100 quid. Why did we not just buy 70-odd million of these, have some lad write an app, and issue them free to everyone? The stupidity of these people is mesmerising. We'd have 30 billion pounds left over.

mrs ishmael said...

Well, Keir Starmer has promised to appoint a Covid Commissioner/Investigator/Recovery Agent when he gets into power - might be a vote winner, but I don't know how effective yer man would be at getting the money back.

inmate said...

We'd have 30 billion pounds left over. Yes, imagine how many sandniggers, Ukrainians, Russians the B liar creature could’ve had killed with that amount of cash.
Starmer mrs I? Starmer? He’s no more Labour or socialist than Cameron, another uniparty WEF stooge. Investigator/Recovery Agent just another whitewash/scam like the Covid inquiry, waste millions to prove you were right all along, it was somebody else that got it wrong.

mrs ishmael said...

I fear you are right, mr inmate - Parliamentary democracy seems to be no more than a massive scam to keep the political classes in power and pull the wool over our eyes. I'm not clever enough to propose an alternative, though - and why would the turkeys vote for Christmas? They will hang onto power, white knuckled and lying through their gritted teeth and rictus smiles, until the end of days - which seem to be fast approaching. Four horsemen, and all that.