Scottish businesswoman Michelle Mone has hit back at her critics on the eve of making her maiden speech in the House of Lords. In an interview in a Sunday newspaper Baroness Mone, who will today speak on the subject of women and mentoring, said she did not know why she had been singled out for criticism.
"Is it because I'm a woman? Is it because I'm Scottish? Because I'm white? A mother of three? Is it because I've lost eight and a half stone and I'm now slightly glamorous? It's horrible to say but when I was eight and a half stone heavier I never got this attention."
Speaking in the wake of the release of a report she conducted for the Depatrment for Work and Pensions into encouraging business start-ups in deprived areas last week, she lambasted critics for attacking her commitment. "You can criticise all you want, Mr Labour Nobody, what have you done? Did you get your backside out there for seven months and interview over 100 people? Did you work your arse off? So don't criticise me."
In the interview she claims that her involvement in the No camp during the Scottish referendum was the starting point for much of the vitriol currently aimed against her. Appearing with the Prime Minister David Cameron led to "physical threats", she said.
Baroness Mone's appointment to the Lords was seen as a controversial decision, with the appointment criticised by many in the Scottish business sector. Earlier this year she altered the status of her company MGM Media from a limited company to an unlimited company thus ending the need to file public accounts. Her former lingerie business Ultimo was sold to a Sri Lanka-based group in 2014 after she and her husband separated with the business racking up losses.
Speaking to the Sunday paper the businesswoman defended her involvement with the bra company she had set up in Glasgow in 1996. "Ultimo was extremely successful for 15 years, then I had a really bad divorce. I still sold it and made a lot of money, so I think when they class me as a failure – I'm not the most successful. I'm not the biggest – but you can't say that I've not succeeded."
She added that she had put off her maiden speech in the Lords until the criticism of her appointment had died down. Her fellow peers had been mostly welcoming, "except a couple, who have not, who maybe don't think you deserve to be there."
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