Michelle Mone: Who is the Ultimo founder and Tory peer who supported cutting tax credits?
Mone sparked a backlash over tweets after first vote in House of Lords
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Your support makes all the difference.The Ultimo founder Michelle Mone has faced online cries of “shame on you” after using her first House of Lords vote to support a delay in cuts to tax credits.
Mone was hit by a second wave of criticism when she tweeted about never “making excuses” and being “proactive” a day after voting to oppose the amendment.
The 43-year-old was made a Tory peer in October and has been in and out of headlines ever since.
Mone came from humble beginnings
Born in Glasgow, Mone left school at 15 with no qualifications and gave birth to her first child at 18. She worked as a model before starting work at Labatt Brewers, where she was appointed Head of Sales and Marketing for Scotland aged 22. Mone claims she fabricated qualifications in order to get a job at Labatt and her "foot in the door". According to her website, she was made redundant two years later and founded her company with the £500 redundancy sum she received, launching the business in 1996.
She told The Guardian her ambition was spurred by the experience of raising a child while struggling financially. “I was 19 and my friends were away in Ibiza partying, or students," she said in 2010. "I was stuck at home, in this wee flat, with no TV, skint. Couldn't even buy food. My husband was a trainee at the time. He was on £13,000 a year and that was our income between the two of us.
“We could have got by. I mean I didn't have to get a job. But I was really hungry. I wanted to make something of my life.”
In 2012, she bought her ex-husband out of the business they ran after their split and began a partnership with the lingerie group MAS Holdings. Mone received an OBE from the Queen in 2010 and has an estimated net worth of £20 million.
She is a former Labour supporter
Mone was a life-long supporter of the party before backing the Conservatives ahead of the 2015 General Election.
In a column for The Sun, Mone claimed electing the former Labour leader Ed Miliband would lead to the party being bullied and controlled by Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP.
“Ed Miliband is a nice guy but I just don't think he's real leadership material. And frankly, Nicola Sturgeon would run rings around him,” she wrote in May.
“Everyone thinking of voting in this election needs to realise that. Nicola Surgeon would totally rule the roost. Along with Alex Salmond, she would call all the shots.”
She charges a reported £10,000 for business mentoring
Her website describes her as a mentor and “one of the most in demand speaker for corporate events”. Mone has also made appearances on a number of reality television shows, including The Apprentice, Celebrity Masterchef and 71 Degrees North.
It isn’t the first time her tweets have incurred Twitter’s wrath
Last month, Mone irked the public by tweeting about travelling in a chauffeur-driven government vehicle while carrying out her work on a review into start-ups in disadvantaged areas.
Her selection as an entrepreneurial tsar was met with mixed reviews by her fellow entrepreneurs, with a number saying they found her appointment “strange” and “bizarre”.
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