Talk:Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

Place of birth

Whereabout in the East End of Glasgow? It IS a big place, after all. I spent a quarter century there and there are a lot of districts.80.43.38.21 (talk) 18:19, 1 June 2015 (UTC) Lance Tyrell

I've been through Scotland's People, which contains the legal records of births, deaths and marriages, and through Ancestry. I've found the references in her autobiography confirming the dates of birth of her 3 names children and her marriage to Michael John Mone. The marriage shows her name to be Michelle Georgi[-] Allan all in Martha Street, Glasgow. Sebmelmoth (talk) 16:45, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

General article tone

I'm not a fan of this woman, and she may be a thoroughly nasty piece of work for all I know, but the article currently reads like an out and out hatchet job. Editors may have reacted to previous COI and paid editing by her PR people. Whatever the reason, the article as it currently stands is unencyclopaedic and needs a rewrite. I have absolutely no connection with Michelle Mone. Ef80 (talk) 21:31, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

It's an important principle that we call a spade a spade. Ericoides (talk) 21:03, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, yes, but neutrality is equally if not more important. --Ef80 (talk) 10:42, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ef80: Can you be more specific about what the problem is? Neutrality here means summarising what's been published in reliable sources and if those are on the whole negative stories, then the article should reflect that. If there are reliable sources that paint a different picture and aren't included then they can be added. SmartSE (talk) 13:02, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

The fact that most recent RS coverage of Mone has been negative is part of the problem. Mone is a political figure closely associated with Boris Johnson's Covid response, and also appears to be a bit of a chancer, so there have been many attack pieces written in left-of-centre sources like the Guardian. By listing all these accusations in a fairly detailed manner, the article itself becomes an attack piece. I don't have a simple solution - it certainly isn't a matter of unearthing some newspaper article where Mone helped at a homeless shelter or gave money to Oxfam to provide 'balance'. --Ef80 (talk) 14:05, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Ef80: It's not just recent coverage though, or limited to the Guardian though - the FT, Times and Sunday Times have all published critical articles over several years, way before Covid. I strongly dispute that summarising these sources makes the article an "attack piece". SmartSE (talk) 21:19, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Not forgetting WP:BIASED, of course, which reminds us that, although Wiki articles are absolutely required to present a neutral point of view, that reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. It is our job as editors to recognise which media articles are biased and/or partisan, and treat them appropriately.

Also, we need to be wary of mimicking the sensationalising and editorialising behaviour that pervades the media nowadays, even in what were traditionally thought of as reliable sources of sound facts. I notice that the current article is riddled with WP:EDITORIAL and WP:CLAIM type words, such as "revealed", "claim"/"claims"/"claimed", etc.

There is definitely plenty of room for improvement. -- DeFacto (talk). 14:18, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@DeFacto: So which sources do you think are biased and how have you determined that? I agree that we should be cautious the way we present information, but without any specific examples it is difficult to know what you think the problem is. Regarding "claimed" etc. it's important that the article conveys that all the stuff about Covid is accusations at this stage, and more generally, if a source says that the subject claimed something, how else should we report that? Some of the "revealed" could definitely be trimmed though and replaced with better attribution of the sources. i.e. The Guardian reported... SmartSE (talk) 21:19, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Smartse, I haven't reviewed many of the sources used by this article, so couldn't say which, if any, I think are biased. I was making a general point based on a skim through the article, and recognising the 'tone' problem as raised in this thread.

As I see it, there are two potential origins for that 'tone'. The first is that it is being injected by our Wiki editors' reflecting their own bias. The second is that it is inherited from biased sources, possibly cherry-picked, by the close parroting of them. The recommended approach to creating prose in articles, as we should all know, is to read, digest, and neutrally summarise a cross-section of sources, in our own words, and being careful to recognise any bias in the sources, pervasive or otherwise, and disregard it.

On the use of the word "claimed" you ask, if a source says that the subject claimed something, how else should we report that? Well, we read the source, see how/if it substantiates its phrasing, compare it with accounts of the same event from as many other sources as are available, then use editorial judgement to recount it in our own, neutral, wording. -- DeFacto (talk). 08:06, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

DeFacto summarises the issues well. Mone isn't an easy person to like, and most of the newspaper coverage of her various activities has carried clear notes of disapproval - the tut-tutting leaps off the page. This is acceptable in journalism, but it does jar when carried over into an encyclopedia. --Ef80 (talk) 11:29, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

The Guardian has no shareholder, proprietor or state funder who might discourage the truth being published. Especially with the false threats of litigation Mone and her husband employ. Other sources show more bias. 2A00:23C8:8F9F:4801:594E:48E3:1BEF:11A1 (talk) 21:19, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

How do you know all that about The Guardian? Do you believe that The Guardian always uses an impartial tone in articles relating to Mone? -- DeFacto (talk). 21:48, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

We've been published in a reliable source!

See this report showing that this article from a supposed-RS has loads of content directly copied from the article including the bit about her divorce and children that @DeFacto: removed earlier today. There's a template somewhere to add to the top to make sure nobody uses it as a source, but I can't remember which one it is. SmartSE (talk) 19:10, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Are you thinking of Template:Backwards copy? That seems to be more about making sure people don't mark this as a copyvio of the article that copied from Wikipedia's article but it was the closest that came to mind. AlistairMcMillan (talk) 19:51, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

LOL. Never mind, I see you beat me to it. :) AlistairMcMillan (talk) 19:52, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Truly shocking! It just shows how easy it is to feed fake news into the mainstream media. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:19, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

"Former Tory peer"

According to the Guardian/ Observer newspaper today 17/12/23, she is a "former Conservative peer".[1] 51.7.153.178 (talk) 11:52, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

She is listed as Baroness Mone but on leave of absence. [2][3] Jaymailsays (talk) 12:55, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

It's not entirely clear what her status with the Conservative Party is. A BBC article published today states: "The Scottish businesswoman was made a Conservative peer by David Cameron but is no longer in the party." That implies she is not a member of the party, but I'm not sure. Yet the Parliament website has her as a Conservative peer (currently on leave of absence).Seaweed (talk) 16:43, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Attendance in House of Lords

This section seems very subjective bordering on political to me. Regardless of what anyone might think about the procedures of the House of Lords, peers don't have to speak, vote or anything like that if they don't want to. They are not accountable to any electorate and all have life terms. I think the only thing that can happen is removal under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 in relation to non-attendence or serious criminal conviction. But what is "attendance" anyway? That appears to be as simple as sitting in the chamber for a bit, as far as I can tell. This must be how Lord Carter of Barnes is still a peer having apparently not spoken or voted in the chamber since 2009! Anyway, back to Baroness Mone. If some of her political opponents critise her occasional Lords apperances, I'm scratching my head as to why it's notable as such. There are currently almost 800 peers and loads of them hardly ever attend or speak. It's a feature of the House of Lords which is an entirely different debate. It might seem ridiculous to some, but this is an encylcopedia not a political discussion. If anything, this section is too long so I might try and trim it down a bit. Seaweed (talk) 16:38, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

This sounds like your personal opinion rather than something backed up by sources or policy. All that matters is that multiple reliable sources have discussed her record of attendance and thus considered it important. We just reflect what others have written. SmartSE (talk) 20:14, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Maybe I didn't explain my thinking very well. I meant that it feels like original research to me about her attendance. It seems that her politcal opponents are making the comments, which is fair enough, but that's not always encylopedic. I'm not always convinced that just because there are multiple news stories about something a political figure does, that necessarily makes it notable. All political biographies are vulnerable to this issue. I'm not really interested in the politics either way to be honest - I've only vaguely heard of Michelle Mone before. I just worry sometimes about political opinions becoming sort-of "facts" as it were. I suppose in summary I'm saying "Baroness Mone hasn't spoken or voted in the House of Lords very often... so what?. How is that behaviour notable in the context of that institution where it's commonplace?" People can just read Hansard and judge her for themselves if they want. Anyway, I can't believe I've written so much about this!! I'm actually going to move on in my life and leave this article to others!! Seaweed (talk) 16:22, 19 December 2023 (UTC)