Mone is touring the UK, speaking to people from disadvantaged areas to determine what the barriers to business creation there are. Her work will culminate in a report detailing how she believes the government can go about tackling the issue.
However, after giving up her board position at Ultimo, the lingerie company she founded and built up to a multi-million pound enterprise, to focus on new business interests and her work with the government, Mone is in the limelight for the wrong reasons.
Her tweet, showing the interior of a chauffeur-driven Jaguar and reading “Love it so much”, has been attacked by people on social media. Before she was able to delete the post, critics asked why she needed subsidised travel of that type.
Again taking to Twitter Mone said: “I’m working so hard&giving over 50 FREE days for this review to give back.I got a lift in a car for 15 mins,dropped at the train station…[sic].
“How is this fair when all I’m trying to do is help other people achieve their dreams? I will continue to work hard & carry on with my work [sic].”
The Department for Work and Pensions said that although Mone is not being paid for her work, she had the use of the car on the day in question. However, the department did not say how much it cost taxpayers or how often Mone had access to it.
Read more about Michelle Mone:
- The rise of David Cameron’s business power women
- Michelle Mone gives up lingerie board seats to focus on new government role
- Lingerie entrepreneur Michelle Mone leaves Scotland and blasts SNP
The incident is not the first time Mone has courted controversy during 2015. In May, she hit out against the Scottish National Party’s plans for Scottish Independence and said she was moving to London.
Mone came out in support of the Conservatives and announced in her column with The Sun that: “I am genuinely concerned that we could end up sleepwalking to this outcome: Ed Miliband in Downing Street, being bullied about by Nicola Sturgeon.”
She believed that Labour and the Scottish National Party (SNP) would be a “horror show” for the economy. “Their sums just don’t add up,” she added.
The entrepreneur is the latest in a long line of female business women to be given prominent positions by Cameron. Joining the likes of Karren Brady, Martha Lane Fox and Tamara Mellon, the prime minister has developed a habit of recruiting industry experts to provide insight on, and produce reports of, particular issues.
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