title: Maine's 2nd congressional district

text: The boundaries of the District are open for reconsideration in light of population shifts revealed by the decennial US Census. Until 2011, Maine's constitution provided for the state to reapportion the Congressional districts based on census data every ten years beginning in 1983, which would have meant that the state was next due to consider redistricting in 2013. However, a federal lawsuit filed in March 2011 led to a requirement that Maine speed up its redistricting process. Maine state legislators approved new boundaries on September 27, 2011.


title: Maine's 2nd congressional district

text: In US presidential elections, most states give all the state's electoral votes to the candidate that wins the statewide popular vote. This is a type of winner-takes-all voting. Maine and Nebraska instead use the congressional district method, where the winner in each of the state's congressional districts gets one electoral vote, and the statewide winner gets an additional two electoral votes. Since Maine introduced this system in 1969, Maine's second district voted the same way as the entire state of Maine for every election until 2016 and 2020.


title: The Way (Fastball song)

text: "The Way" is a song by American alternative rock band Fastball. It was released on January 7, 1998, as the lead single from their second studio album, "All the Pain Money Can Buy" (1998). The song was written by the band's lead vocalist, Tony Scalzo, and was produced by the band and Julian Raymond. Scalzo was inspired to write the song after reading about the disappearance of an elderly couple who were found dead in their car many miles away from their original destination.


title: The Way (Fastball song)

text: "The Way" peaked at number one on the US "Billboard" Modern Rock Tracks chart in April 1998 and remained there for seven weeks. It also reached number one in Canada on the week of June 15, 1998, and topped the "RPM" Alternative 30 chart for four weeks. Worldwide, the song peaked at number seven in Sweden and entered the top 20 in Australia, Iceland, and Norway. The song was voted by VH1 as one of its "100 Greatest Songs of the '90s", ranking it at number 94.


title: The Way (Fastball song)

text: Fastball frontman Tony Scalzo came up with the idea for the song after reading articles that described the June 1997 disappearance of an elderly married couple, Lela and Raymond Howard from Salado, Texas, who left home to attend the Pioneer Day festival at nearby Temple, Texas, despite Lela's Alzheimer's and Raymond recently recovering from brain surgery. They were discovered two weeks later, dead, at the bottom of a ravine near Hot Springs, Arkansas, hundreds of miles off their intended route. The authorities who investigated the accident believed that Lela, who was driving the car, was trying to locate a place where she had once vacationed.


title: The Way (Fastball song)

text: The song's lyrics revolve around an older married couple who decide to leave their life behind by packing their things and going driving, without telling their children about their plans. Their car breaks down during the trip, forcing them to continue on foot. The chorus expresses the idea that the couple are achieving happiness by losing touch with the world, even though they may never see their home again.


title: The Way (Fastball song)

text: The beginning of the song features a radio scanning through FM stations. Most of the content heard is advertisements, and at one point, the radio tunes in while "Foolish Games" by Jewel is playing.


title: The Way (Fastball song)

text: In 2019, alt-country band Mike and the Moonpies recorded a cover of the song while playing a show to mark the 45th anniversary of the "Hole in the Wall" bar that gave both Mike and the Moonpies and Fastball their start.


title: M39 cannon

text: The M39 cannon is a 20 mm caliber single-barreled revolver cannon developed for the United States Air Force in the late 1940s. It was used on a number of fighter aircraft from the early 1950s through the 1980s.


title: M39 cannon

text: The M39 was developed by the Springfield Armory, based on the World War II–era design of the German Mauser MG 213, a 20 mm (and 30 mm) cannon developed for the Luftwaffe, which did not see combat use. The same design inspired the 30mm British ADEN cannon and the French DEFA, but American designers chose a smaller 20 mm round to increase the weapon's rate of fire and muzzle velocity at the expense of hitting power. The 20×102mm round was later chosen by France for the M621 cannon.


title: M39 cannon

text: Initially designated the T-160, the new gun was installed for combat testing on a number of F-86 Sabre aircraft under the "GunVal" program in late 1952, and used in action over Korea in early 1953. The results of the program were startling, with the GUNVAL F-86F's having downed 6 MIG fighters and damaged 12 others. This signaled the end of the M3 .50 caliber as the preferred fighter weapon system ongoing. It was subsequently adopted as standard armament of the F-86H fighter-bomber, F-100 Super Sabre, F-101A and F-101C Voodoo, and the F-5 Freedom Fighter. The M39 was also used on the B-57B tactical bomber. Current models of the F-5 Tiger II still use the M39A2 version of this weapon. The M39A2 was introduced in 1964.


title: M39 cannon

text: The weapon is gas operated and consists of a five–chamber magazine running parallel to the barrel. Sealing was provided by a forcing cone that was pressed into the barrel. The sealing movement was at no time more than 1/4". A feeder mechanism ensured the proper placement of the rounds for ramming. This was powered by a feeder shaft that received kinetic force via the rotating magazine drum. This in turn was powered by propellant gas. The exterior of the 5-cylinder drum was studded with bearings that acted on a shifting cam located below the rammer/extractor platform. The gun could be set up for either right- or left-hand feed by switching the feeder head around. Some 35,000 were produced before being superseded by the M61 cannon which outperformed the M39 in almost every way. The only US aircraft still flying with the M39 is the Northrop F-5, an aircraft now only used for training. Extensive work had to be done on the forcing cone, heat dissipation, cook-off prevention, link testing, and reinforcement, to raise the mean time between failures to 1-in-1000 rounds fired. Four arms manufacturers, three independent companies, and a university research department, were involved in getting the weapon working correctly.


title: M39 cannon

text: In Vietnam in 1967 the 116th Assault Helicopter Company operating out of Củ Chi Base Camp used the M39 mounted inverted on the forward hardpoints on the underside of a UH-1 helicopter, with ammunition feed out the left cargo door through a chute. The unit's report for May through July 1967 states "A low-level type of attack has been used on bunker lines with a good deal of success. It consists of locating and pinpointing the target area, then turning out, dropping down to about 50 feet [] (at 120 knots []) and when about 500 meters from the target, popping up to about 150 feet [], turning hell, death and destruction onto the target, turning off, and being gone before Charlie recovers from the shock...It is most effective on huts or heavily wooded tree lines. A hut is almost totally destroyed, i.e., to the point of setting it on fire and reducing it to ashes, and a tree line is so effectively covered that many of the trees are defoliated or limbs, etc., blown off. In situations where the enemy is using less than bunker-type cover, the 20mm coverage is so effective that it is quite reasonable to assume that those individuals who were in the area are either dead or severely wounded." As to the ammunition, the same unit report says, "The ammunition is M-56AZ high explosive incendiary #12 link. It weighs almost one pound per round and has a bursting radius of 9 meters. It is spin-actuated at about 50 meters. It detonates upon contact with anything."


title: M39 cannon

text: While a major leap forward in aircraft armament, all revolver cannon suffer from the effects of barrel wear, heat dissipation, and parts life. The final improved version of the M39 had barrel changes mandated at 4000 rounds. The system would be replaced by the M61 Vulcan in aircraft for this and MTBF as well as weight considerations.


title: M39 cannon

text: The M39 served as the basis for the T-75 autocannon developed by Taiwan (Republic of China), as a more-powerful partial replacement for the M2HB machine gun onboard naval vessels and the HMMWV tactical vehicle, with its latest use being within the XTR-101 and XTR-102 weapon stations.


title: M39 cannon

text: The T-82 20mm Twin Anti-Aircraft Cannon as the basis for the T-75 autocannon developed by Taiwan (Republic of China).


title: Miles Austin

text: Miles Jonathon Austin III (born June 30, 1984) is an American football coach and former wide receiver who is the wide receivers coach for the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL). He previously played in the NFL for 10 seasons, primarily with the Dallas Cowboys. Austin played college football at Monmouth, where he set the school's record for receiving yards.


title: Miles Austin

text: Signed by the Dallas Cowboys as an undrafted free agent in 2006, Austin spent eight seasons with the team and was named to two Pro Bowls. His most successful season was in 2009 when he led the National Football Conference (NFC) in receiving yards and obtained the Cowboys' single game receiving yards record. In his final two seasons, Austin was a member of the Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles. He pursued a coaching career following his retirement and became the Jets' wide receivers coach in 2021.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin was born in Summit, New Jersey to parents Miles, an African-American, and mother Ann Austin, a Caucasian, who were born in New Jersey and Nebraska, respectively. He has one sister, Jennifer Austin. Austin grew up in Garfield, New Jersey and attended Garfield High School. He was a letterman in football, basketball, and track and field. In football, he played wide receiver and defensive back, and as a senior, he won All-Bergen County honors and All-State honors. In basketball, Austin garnered All-Bergen County honors as well.


title: Miles Austin

text: Also a standout athlete, Austin was on the school's track & field team, where he was a top competitor in the sprinting, jumping and throwing events. He recorded the third-longest javelin throw in Bergen County history, with a throw of 65.44 meters. He placed third in the triple jump event at the 2001 New Jersey Meet of Champions, with a leap of 13.35 meters. He got a personal-best leap of 6.81 meters in the long jump. In sprints, he had career-best times of 10.8 seconds in the 100 meters and 22.28 seconds in the 200 meters.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin played college football for the Monmouth Hawks football team. He caught 150 passes for 2,867 yards and 33 touchdowns. He left the school as the record-holder in receiving yards, which has since been broken by Reggie White Jr.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin rushed 15 times for 140 yards and one touchdown. In 2003, he set a Monmouth single-season record for touchdown catches with 12. He ran 4.47 second 40-yard dash and jumped 40.5 inches in the vertical leap at the 2006 NFL combine.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2006 by the Dallas Cowboys, making him the first player from Monmouth to appear in the NFL. He made the team based on his potential and was used mainly on special teams, returning 29 kickoffs for 753 yards and recorded 5 tackles. His main highlight of the year was in the Cowboys against the Seattle Seahawks. He returned 3 kickoffs for 136 yards in the game, including a 93-yard touchdown return. In the 55 postseason games in franchise history, it was the Cowboys' first ever kickoff return touchdown.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin was the team's main kickoff returner, ranking third in the NFC and ninth in the league with a 25.5 average on 24 attempts for 612 yards. He set career-highs with six kickoff returns for 166 yards against the Green Bay Packers. He also recorded his first career reception against the New York Jets.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin had a strong training camp and was contending for the starting position that was open with the departure of Terry Glenn, until spraining his knee in the third preseason game against the Houston Texans. After missing some games with the injury, he exploded against the Green Bay Packers registering 115 yards on two catches for his first career 100-yard game and first touchdown. He suffered a second knee injury against the Washington Redskins and missed three games.


title: Miles Austin

text: With the release of Terrell Owens, Austin started the regular season as the Cowboys' No. 3 receiver. During free agency, the New York Jets looked at Austin but did not offer him a contract, possibly because they would have had to give the Cowboys a second-round draft pick in order to sign him. Before the year, Football Outsiders rated Austin as the top prospect in football on their Top 25 Prospects list.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin got his first NFL start on October 11, 2009 against the Kansas City Chiefs, as a replacement for injured Roy Williams. Austin had 10 catches for 250 yards (a Cowboys record for receiving yards in a single game, breaking Bob Hayes' 246-yard effort in 1966 against the Washington Redskins) and 2 touchdowns including the 60-yard game winner in overtime. Austin made his second career start on October 25 against the Atlanta Falcons replacing Patrick Crayton as the No. 2 receiver. Austin solidified his place as a starting receiver with 171 receiving yards along with 2 touchdowns. After only two weeks as a starting wide receiver, Austin was the ninth-most productive receiver in the league going into Week 8, and moved up to eighth just four weeks later having caught his 8th touchdown against the Oakland Raiders on Thanksgiving Day. Against the Giants in week 13 he had 10 catches for 104 yards and a touchdown.


title: Miles Austin

text: December 29, 2009, Austin was selected to the 2010 Pro Bowl, his first. He went on to lead the NFC (third overall in the NFL) with 1320 receiving yards for the 2009 season. He also tied for first in the NFC with 11 receiving touchdowns which was tied for third in the NFL for receiving touchdowns in only starting 11 games in the 2009 season.


title: Miles Austin

text: On September 9, 2010, Austin agreed to a six-year contract extension that began in 2011. The deal included $17 million in guaranteed salary. He signed a $3.168 million contract in June 2010 and his extension was worth $54 million, which brought the total value of his contract to $57 million. The team paid a very high first year salary ($17 million), by taking advantage that the NFL collective bargaining agreement wasn't renewed, and in the final year of the agreement there was no salary cap system in place. Even though the NFL initially approved the contract, in 2013 commissioner Roger Goodell would penalize the Cowboys by taking $10 million from the team's original $120.6 million salary cap space.


title: Miles Austin

text: With 10 catches in each of the first two games of the 2010 season, Austin became the second player in Cowboys history to record double-digit catches in consecutive weeks. On Thanksgiving Day, he scored a 60-yard touchdown on an end-around. However, the Cowboys lost 30–27 to the New Orleans Saints.


title: Miles Austin

text: He finished the season with 69 catches for 1,041 yards and 7 touchdowns. He made his second consecutive Pro Bowl in 2010, replacing DeSean Jackson who sprained his MCL during practice for the Pro Bowl.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin's 2011 season started well with a 5-catch, 90-yard performance in week 1, followed by a career-best mark for touchdowns in a game with 3 to go along with 9 catches for 143 yards in a week 2 victory over the San Francisco 49ers.


title: Miles Austin

text: In week 14 while playing against the New York Giants to secure the division title and a playoff spot, he lost in the lights of Cowboys Stadium a first down pass from Tony Romo that would have won the game for the Cowboys, who ended losing 34–37 and eventually missing the playoffs.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin's 2011 season was marred by nagging hamstring injuries which caused him to miss 6 games and limited him to his lowest reception, touchdown, and yardage output since the 2008 season.


title: Miles Austin

text: After having a disappointing season, Austin started 2012 with 4 receptions for 73 yards while also grabbing a key touchdown in the 4th quarter of a 24–17 upset win over the Super Bowl defending champions New York Giants. The next game was a surprise defeat to the Seattle Seahawks, where he had 5 receptions for 63 yards while also grabbing a touchdown. The next week, in a victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Austin had 5 receptions for 107 yards. In the fourth game against the Chicago Bears, he had 4 receptions for 57 yards while also grabbing a touchdown in a losing effort caused by the Cowboys' 5 interceptions. He bounced back with 5 receptions for 97 yards with a touchdown in a victory over the Carolina Panthers. In a Week 13 win over the Philadelphia Eagles, he had 2 receptions for 46 yards with a touchdown. Austin's multiple injuries and the emergence of Dez Bryant as the Cowboys' leading wide receiver, hurt his chances of reaching 1,000 yards, but still had a productive year with 943 receiving yards, 66 receptions and 6 touchdowns.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin looked to bounce back in 2013. After a Week 1 performance with 10 receptions and 72 receiving yards in a victory over the New York Giants, in the next two weeks, he would be held to 5 receptions and 53 receiving yards, while suffering a hamstring injury in the third game. After being shut down by the team in an effort to return him to health, he did not have another reception until a Week 12 victory over the New York Giants. In that game, Austin had one reception for 17 yards followed by another discouraging performance in a Thanksgiving victory over the Oakland Raiders, with one reception for 18 yards. His season would end up being a disappointment after missing five games with a left hamstring injury, never displaying his explosive speed and being held without a reception in two games. Austin finished with his lowest receiving numbers since his second year in the league and his future with the team at risk, taking into account his history of hamstring injuries and rookie Terrance Williams playing well in his absence.


title: Miles Austin

text: On March 11, 2014, it was announced that Austin had been designated as a post-June 1 release, ending his tenure as a Dallas Cowboy.


title: Miles Austin

text: Needing to improve their depth at wide receiver after Josh Gordon's suspension, the Cleveland Browns signed him as a free agent on May 15, 2014. He asked for and received permission from former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar to wear number 19, since the number had not been officially retired. Aside from Frisman Jackson briefly wearing 19 in 2004, the number hadn't been issued by the Browns since Bill Belichick controversially cut Kosar in the middle of the 1993 season. Austin became the leader of a young wide receiver corps and filled the possession receiver role, before being placed on the injured reserve list with a kidney injury on December 3.


title: Miles Austin

text: On March 31, 2015, Austin and the Philadelphia Eagles agreed to terms on a one-year deal worth $2.3 million. Austin, who was projected to have a big role in a young and inexperienced wide receiver corps, was held to 13 catches for 224 yards and 1 touchdown in 11 games. He had some moments, such as a 39-yard catch and run for a touchdown against the Redskins, but he was still criticized for not producing, as he was held to 0 catches in 5 different games, with a season high of 4 catches for 52 yards. On December 7, 2015, Austin was released by the Eagles.


title: Miles Austin

text: In 2017, Austin was hired by the Dallas Cowboys as a pro and college scouting intern. He described his role as an "advanced scout" who evaluated receivers and defensive backs. In January 2018, Austin was interviewed for a role as the Cowboys wide receivers coach, which eventually went to Sanjay Lal.


title: Miles Austin

text: On February 27, 2019, Austin was hired by the San Francisco 49ers as an offensive quality control coach. He was on the team's coaching staff when they advanced to Super Bowl LIV. After the 49ers' loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, Austin departed from his role in 2020.


title: Miles Austin

text: On January 18, 2021, Austin was hired by the New York Jets as their wide receivers coach. The hire reunited Austin with head coach Robert Saleh, who was the 49ers' defensive coordinator while Austin was with San Francisco.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin briefly dated Kim Kardashian in 2010. In 2014, Austin married his wife, Stacy Sydlo, whom he had met at Monmouth. They have three children together.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin returned to Monmouth University in 2018 to complete his college education. He graduated the following year with a degree in political science. In 2020, Austin was elected to serve on Monmouth's Board of Trustees.


title: Miles Austin

text: Austin established the non-profit organization "The Austin Family Foundation Inc." Their goal is to help provide student athletes with the opportunity to realize and fulfill their potential.


title: Royal Military Police

text: The Royal Military Police (RMP) is the corps of the British Army responsible for the policing of army service personnel, and for providing a military police presence both in the UK and while service personnel are deployed overseas on operations and exercises. Members of the RMP are often known as 'Redcaps' because of the scarlet covers on their peaked caps and scarlet coloured berets.


title: Royal Military Police

text: The RMP's origins can be traced back to the 13th century but it was not until 1877 that a regular corps of military police was formed with the creation of the Military Mounted Police, which was followed by the Military Foot Police in 1885. Although technically two independent corps, they effectively functioned as a single organisation. In 1926, they were fully amalgamated to form the Corps of Military Police (CMP). In recognition of their service in the Second World War, they became the Corps of Royal Military Police on 28 November 1946. In 1992, the RMP amalgamated into the Adjutant General's Corps (AGC), where they form part of the AGC's Provost Branch.


title: Royal Military Police

text: Non-commissioned members of the RMP receive their basic training as soldiers at the Army Training Centre in Pirbright. They then receive further training at the Defence School of Policing and Guarding (DSPG), previously known as the Defence College of Policing and Guarding (DCPG).


title: Royal Military Police

text: The regimental march of the RMP is "The Watchtower" or ""Hoch Heidecksburg"", originally a German Army marching tune from 1912 by Rudolf Herzer. The RMP motto is "Exemplo ducemus", Latin for "By example shall we lead".


title: Royal Military Police

text: The Provost Marshal is a post which goes back to the 13th century and was originally an under-officer of the Earl Marshal. In 1685 the role of Provost Marshal General became a permanent post. The Cavalry Staff Corps of 1813–14 and 1815–18 is regarded as Britain's first standing military police force and a forerunner of the Royal Military Police. The Military Mounted Police was formed in 1877 and the Military Foot Police was formed in 1885.


title: Royal Military Police

text: During the First World War the Military Police grew from 508 all ranks to over 25,000 all ranks by the end of the War. During the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915 the Military Police served the Army as a whole, rather than individual units.


title: Royal Military Police

text: On 27 February 1926 the Corps of Military Police was formed by merging the Military Mounted Police and the Military Foot Police.


title: Royal Military Police

text: During the Second World War the Military Police grew from 4,121 all ranks to over 50,000 all ranks within six major branches of specialists:


title: Royal Military Police

text: In November 1946, King George VI granted the 'Royal' prefix to the Corps of Military Police in recognition of its outstanding record in two World Wars and the Corps became known as The Corps of Royal Military Police, though abbreviated to Royal Military Police (RMP). From 1969 the Corps made an important contribution during The Troubles in Northern Ireland.


title: Royal Military Police

text: A horse detachment of the Royal Military Police remained in service after World War II, being recreated in 1950. Based at Aldershot, its purpose was mainly to undertake patrol and other policing duties in areas not suitable for vehicles, but also to act as a ceremonial unit preserving mounted RMP traditions dating back to the nineteenth century. The Mounted Troop was gradually reduced to about 20 personnel and finally disbanded in 1995.


title: Royal Military Police

text: On 6 April 1992 the RMP amalgamated into the Adjutant General's Corps (AGC), under whose overall command they form part of the AGC's Provost Branch alongside the also pre-existent Military Provost Staff Corps and the later-formed Military Provost Guard Service. Although they lost status as an independent corps, they were permitted to retain the Royal Military Police title and cap badge.


title: Royal Military Police

text: As well as policing service personnel whilst at home in the UK, the Royal Military Police are required to provide a capable military police presence in support of military operations overseas.


title: Royal Military Police

text: Broadly speaking, within the United Kingdom and its overseas garrisons, the Royal Military Police are responsible for policing service personnel. In garrison towns, the RMP often assist the local territorial police force in town centres at venues where service personnel are likely to frequent. Some Royal Military Police NCOs are allocated roles working on Service Family Accommodation (SFA) estates, such as Community Liaison Officers and Crime Reduction Officers. Part of this role involves visiting schools in the SFA catchment area, where the school's children come from service families. In the UK, this work is often done in conjunction with the Ministry of Defence Police.


title: Royal Military Police

text: The Royal Military Police are required to provide tactical military police support to the British Army in military operations. When deployed, some of the roles the RMP fulfill include:


title: Royal Military Police

text: Royal Military Police personnel are not constables under UK law and do not have any specific police powers over the general public, only whilst dealing with service personnel. The RMP are subject to inspection by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, in the same way as UK civilian police forces.


title: Royal Military Police

text: RMP personnel sometimes have powers, conferred by Military lands byelaws, to give lawful directions to civilians who are on Ministry of Defence land affected by such byelaws. This may include the power to regulate vehicular and pedestrian traffic, close or restrict access, or to direct civilians to leave Military land to which the byelaws apply. The particulars of these powers are highly changeable and are determined by each individual Statutory Instrument.


title: Royal Military Police

text: A member of the Royal Military Police can arrest any individual in the UK whom he or she has reasonable grounds to believe to be a serving member of HM Armed Forces and to have committed a relevant civil or military law offence. RMP personnel do not have to be on Ministry of Defence land to exercise their authority over service personnel. The RMP also have police powers over personnel of the other two branches of the Armed Forces: the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. The Royal Navy Police and RAF Police also have reciprocal police powers over British Army personnel.


title: Royal Military Police

text: Where service personnel are deployed overseas, the Royal Military Police are often called upon to provide a complete policing service. In these situations, members of the Royal Military Police can often exercise police powers in respect of civilians subject to service discipline. This includes, not exclusively, service dependents and overseas contractors sponsored by the British Army.


title: Royal Military Police

text: In Germany, under the Status of forces agreement, the RMP has jurisdiction and primacy over British service personnel, their families, MoD contractors, and NAAFI staff. The German civil police only normally become involved where the interests of a German national are concerned.


title: Royal Military Police

text: Royal Military Police personnel undertaking general police duties are equipped with extendable batons, Hiatt speedcuffs and Airwave personal radios.


title: Royal Military Police

text: RMP commissioned officers attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, as do all other British Army officers. Other ranks recruits undertake their phase 1, Common Military Syllabus (Recruits) training at the Army Training Regiment in Winchester. They then move onto Phase 2 which is undertaken at the Defence School of Policing and Guarding.


title: Royal Military Police

text: The regimental headquarters of the RMP moved to MOD Southwick Park - Southwick House - near Portsmouth, in February 2007. It is co-located with the triservice Defence School of Policing and Guarding. The RMP training centre moved there on 27 September 2005, from the RMP's long-standing RHQ (with effect from February, 1964) at Roussillon Barracks in Chichester, West Sussex. The Service Police Crime Bureau is also located at MOD Southwick Park, and is staffed by personnel from the Royal Military Police, Royal Air Force Police, and Royal Navy Police. The RMP Museum has also moved to MOD Southwick Park.


title: Royal Military Police

text: "Redcap", an ABC television drama series which aired from 1964 to 1966, starred John Thaw as SIB investigator Sergeant (later Staff Sergeant) John Mann.


title: Royal Military Police

text: "Red Cap", another television drama series, which aired in 2003 and 2004, starred Tamzin Outhwaite as Sergeant Jo McDonagh, also an SIB investigator.


title: Royal Military Police

text: "Soldier Soldier", a television drama series about an infantry company which aired from 1991 to 1997, featured Holly Aird as Corporal (later Sergeant) Nancy Thorpe RMP.


title: Royal Military Police

text: "The Investigator" (aired 1997) starred Helen Baxendale as an RMP Staff Sergeant. It was about life in the British forces at a time when being homosexual was banned and had serious repercussions. It was based on a true story.


title: Royal Military Police

text: "The Real Redcaps" was a television documentary series about the Royal Military Police which aired from 2003 to 2005. It shows the RMP in the Second Gulf War, their training in (then) Chichester, Close Protection (CP) training, SIB work in Iraq, and other duties such as policing troops in Germany. It also shows the Military Provost Staff Corps Military Provost Guard Service manning MCTC Colchester.


title: Royal Military Police

text: "7 Seconds" is a 2005 Hollywood feature film starring Wesley Snipes, that follows the actions of female Royal Military Police Sergeant Kelly Anders (Tamzin Outhwaite). When an experienced thief accidentally makes off with a valuable Van Gogh painting, his partner is kidnapped by gangsters in pursuit of the painting, forcing the thief to hatch a rescue plan, in which he joins forces with RMP Sgt Anders.


title: Royal Military Police

text: In the 2014 film "Edge of Tomorrow", acting as guards around the Army's command post in London, military personnel wearing a futuristic 'MP' arm band and scarlet berets are shown throughout the film. In one of the chase scenes, RMP troops pursued Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) where an RMP soldier in a mechanical suit stops Cage by destroying the front of his getaway car, leading to his capture.


title: Royal Military Police

text: "The Missing" was a British TV Drama broadcast on the BBC which featured members of the Royal Military Police in several leading and supporting roles, including Laura Fraser as Eve Stone, a Sergeant (later Staff Sergeant) in the RMP.


title: Royal Military Police

text: "The Last Post" is a 2017 BBC television drama series featuring the men and families of the RMP during the Aden Emergency.


title: Royal Military Police

text: "Strike" is a Cinemax/BBC television drama series, from the novels by Robert Galbraith. The main character, Cormoran Blue ("C.B.") Strike is a veteran SIB Sergeant who becomes a private investigator in London after being severely injured by a roadside IED in Afghanistan. The character is played by Tom Burke.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Maidstone United Football Club is a professional football club based in Maidstone, Kent, England. The team compete in the National League, at the fifth tier of the English football league system.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: The current club filled the void left by the old Maidstone United, which was a member of The Football League between 1989 and 1992. That club was forced out of the league following bankruptcy but the nucleus of a new club was built around the youth squad. Maidstone Invicta were originally a youth team but made the step up to adult football in 1992 after being elected to the Kent County League Fourth Division in 1993 and subsequently progressed through the non-league pyramid. They changed their name to Maidstone United in 1995. They played in the Isthmian League Premier Division from 2013 having been promoted from the Isthmian League Division One South and won the league in the 2014–15 season to gain promotion to the National League South (formerly the Conference South) for the 2015–16 season. Maidstone gained a second successive promotion to the National League in 2016, bringing fifth-tier football back to the town for the first time since the old club was promoted to the Football League in 1989. Maidstone were relegated in 2019 in last place before winning the National League South title in 2022.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Maidstone were without a stadium of their own from their creation until 2012 when the Gallagher Stadium, located near Maidstone town centre, was opened at the start of the 2012–13 season.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Maidstone Invicta were originally a youth club and were 'taken over' within days of the Football League side folding. However, the lack of a suitable ground meant the club was effectively relegated seven divisions to the basement of the footballing pyramid and joined the Fourth Division of the Kent County League for the 1993–94 season. The club's home games took place on the original Maidstone's reserve and training pitch, next to the original London Road Stadium. Initially Jim Thompson ran the club, but was banned from football for his part in the demise of Maidstone and Dartford and Paul Bowden-Brown took over as Chairman – a position he retained until 2010.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: The newly created Kent County League side was formed with the nucleus of the original club's youth team – and comfortably won the Fourth Division of the County League under the stewardship of Jack Whitely and Bill Tucker in the 1993–94 season; they were formed too late to join a league for the 1992–93 season. They also managed to win the West Kent Challenge Shield and the Tunbridge Wells Charity Cup. During the close season of 1994 the club managed to gain promotion to Division 2 of the league after restructuring. The club went on to win Division 2, picking up the Kent Junior Cup on the way. However, the Stones, who had returned to their original guise of Maidstone United in 1997, took four years and six managers before finally winning promotion to the Kent County League Premier Division with former Stones player turned manager Jason Lillis leading the club to the Division One title. The 1999–2000 season saw Maidstone's début season in the Premier Division, with the team finishing in a respectable third place. The next season saw the club, which was now managed by another former Maidstonian in Matt Toms, successfully apply to become a senior club and finish second in the league. These factors now left the door open to seek elevation to the Kent League (with the County League being a step-7 league and the Kent League being a step-5 league, direct promotion was not possible).


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: The club's application was accepted and the Stones started the 2001–2002 season in the Kent League. However, the club's ground in Maidstone was nowhere near Kent League standards so the Stones agreed to share Sittingbourne's Central Park stadium while trying to overcome various legal obstacles in the way of a move to a new ground in the town at James Whatman Way.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: In its first Kent League season since reformation, Maidstone won the Kent League and Cup double under the management of Jim Ward. However, the club could not gain promotion to the Southern League Eastern Division because of problems with the lease on Central Park. The lease problems were not solved and during the 2002 close season both Sittingbourne and Maidstone moved out of Central Park to a new ground, named Bourne Park, which was built on the same complex using the old training pitch.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: The 2002–03 season saw Maidstone enter the FA Cup for the first time since reformation, and the club was featured on BBC Sport's 'Road to Cardiff'. The club reached the 2nd qualifying round of the cup, with the highlight of the run coming in the form of a 3–2 win against old foes Tonbridge Angels, with Steve Butler bagging a hat-trick against the Southern League East outfit. In the league, the Stones looked destined to win a second successive title but after a poor run-in, coupled with the withdrawal from the league of Faversham Town, the club bizarrely lost the championship by 0.14 of a point (the League Management Committee decreed that the title would be awarded to the club with the highest earned points per match average, so with Maidstone and Thamesmead Town achieving 63 points from 30 games, the unusual situation arose that the championship was won by Cray Wanderers with 62 points from 29 games). The Stones did pick up some silverware that season, winning both the Kent Senior Trophy and the Kent Charity Cup, but this was overshadowed by continuing lease problems, which meant another attempt to gain promotion to the Southern League was knocked back.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: The years 2003 till 2005 contained two indifferent seasons for the Stones, on the pitch at least. Both campaigns saw the club finish 4th in the league, although this disappointment was offset somewhat by reaching the third qualifying round of the FA Cup in successive years. Off the pitch, the club took a huge step forward when in November 2004 it successfully applied for planning permission to build a new stadium at James Whatman Way. However, construction of the stadium could not begin until a lease for the site was agreed with its owners, the Ministry of Defence.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: The 2005–06 season saw Maidstone, now managed by Lloyd Hume after a spell in charge from Mal Watkins, win the Kent League title. They spent the season toe-to-toe with Beckenham Town before securing the championship on the final day of the season. The title win meant the club finally gained promotion to Step 4 of the non league pyramid, joining the Isthmian League Division One South. However perhaps more importantly, the club's bid to return to Maidstone was another step closer when a 99-year lease was signed for the land at James Whatman Way, meaning the club was now free to start building on it.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Maidstone, who were now managed by Lloyd Hume and Alan Walker in a joint capacity, surprisingly managed to win the league at the first time of asking, gaining promotion to the Isthmian League Premier Division. However the overwhelming success on the pitch was overshadowed by little visible progress being made in the building of the stadium at James Whatman Way.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Before the 2007–08 season had even begun Alan Walker was involved in a freak accident at a coaching course in Belfast which left him temporarily paralysed. Walker made a valiant recovery however, and was back walking and in management by the start of the league season. Maidstone struggled in the new surroundings of the Isthmian League Premier Division and spent the majority of the season near the foot of the table, despite having the services of Chris Smalling at their disposal, however they avoided relegation after beating Folkestone Invicta 1–0 on the last day of the season, a result that relegated Invicta in Maidstone's place. In other news 25% of the club was sold to businessman Oliver Ash in February 2008.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: The 2008–09 was another tough season for Maidstone. The squad who came so close to relegation the year before was largely dismantled with a whole raft of new players replacing them. During the close season it had become increasingly apparent the club could not afford to field a competitive Isthmian Premier team and fund the building of a new stadium, so with what limited funds the club had seemingly tied up in paying new players it was decided to try and fund the construction at James Whatman Way by bidding for a £1.2million grant from the Football Foundation. The bid was turned down in October 2008 and the club was subsequently put up for sale by chairman Paul Bowden-Brown. However no takeover was forthcoming and as a result of this the club had no choice but to halve their wage bill from £6000 to £3000 per week. The majority of the players took pay cuts and led Maidstone to their best league finish since reforming, finishing a comfortable 15th in the Isthmian Premier table and reaching the 4th qualifying round of the FA Cup.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: During the 2009 close season Maidstone moved from their temporary Bourne Park home in Sittingbourne to Ashford Town's stadium, The Homelands, citing lower rent and a deal to receive a percentage of refreshment takings as the reason for the move. However the move only increased Maidstone's financial woes due to a sharp drop in attendances, and in December 2009 it was revealed two months of staff pay was to be deferred to the end of the season, a move that led to Alan Walker and Lloyd Hume resigning as managers of the club. Reserve team boss Pete Nott stepped up to the first team managers role and led Maidstone to an 18th-place finish, avoiding relegation with a game to spare.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: In October 2010 the club was taken over by shareholder Oliver Ash and Terry Casey with Paul Bowden-Brown stepping down as Chairman. In November 2010 the club's new directors sacked first team boss Peter Nott and his backroom staff with the team bottom of the table and out of the FA Cup. Former Gravesend & Northfleet manager Andy Ford was swiftly appointed manager, but he could not improve the club's fortunes and resigned in March 2011 with the club bottom of the league and 8 points adrift from safety. Club captain Jay Saunders was appointed caretaker manager until the end of the season, and although he oversaw the team to 5 wins from nine games he could not save Maidstone from relegation. Saunders was subsequently given the permanent managers job.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: In the 2011 close season the club returned to groundshare at Sittingbourne's Bourne Park after their two-year spell at Ashford's Homelands Stadium, and soon after construction finally began on the club's new ground The Gallagher Stadium. The club finished the season in sixth place, just outside the play-offs.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: The 2012 close season saw Maidstone finally come home, moving into the Gallagher Stadium in July 2012. The club opened the £2.6 million stadium with a showpiece friendly against Brighton & Hove Albion in front of a sell-out crowd. After a two-horse race for the Isthmian League Division One South title with Dulwich Hamlet, and regularly playing in front of crowds of 1,500+, Maidstone eventually won promotion to the Isthmian League Premier Division after beating Faversham Town 3–0 in the Isthmian League Division One South play-off final.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: During the 2014–15 season, Maidstone United qualified for the first round proper of the FA Cup for the first time in their history. Maidstone played a goalless draw away to Stevenage of League Two and in the replay at home in front of a capacity crowd went through to the second round proper, winning 2–1. In the second round Maidstone lost 3–1 at Wrexham of the Conference Premier.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Maidstone United went on to win the Isthmian Premier title following a season-long battle with Margate, then Dulwich Hamlet and finally Hendon. The title was effectively won at Champion Hill, home of Dulwich Hamlet, on 18 April 2015 with Maidstone United drawing 0–0 and Hendon drawing 0–0 away at Grays Athletic. The near-1,000 travelling Stones fans celebrated on the pitch with the Dulwich Hamlet fans, their best position since reforming. The title was officially won on home soil on 25 April 2015 with a 3–2 win over East Thurrock United.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: After winning the Isthmian League Premier Division, Maidstone United were promoted to the National League South (formerly the Conference South). In the 2015–16 season the team again qualified for the first round proper of the FA Cup where they narrowly lost 1–0 at home to League Two side Yeovil Town in front of a record-breaking crowd of 2,811.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: On 14 May 2016, Maidstone United were promoted to the National League after defeating Ebbsfleet United in the National League South promotion final at Stonebridge Road. The match finished 2–2 after extra time, and Maidstone won 4–3 in the resulting penalty shoot-out. Maidstone were relegated back to the National League South after three seasons in the National League by finishing in 24th place in 2018–19. In the 2021–22 season, Maidstone won the National League South title.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Since reformation Maidstone's home shirts have been amber with black trim. All white was the template used for away shirts, but from 2009 to 2013 the club wore sky blue. They returned to a white away kit in the summer of 2013. In 2017, the away kit was changed to purple shirt, shorts and socks, with a white trim around the sleeves.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Maidstone United play their home games at The Gallagher Stadium, James Whatman Way, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1LQ.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: After the original club folded, the new Maidstone United played their games on a pitch behind a Mormon meeting house, which had originally been the MUFC reserves and training pitch – just metres from where the old ground had been. Promotion to the Kent League in 2001 meant the club had to move away yet again as the current ground was nowhere near up to standard. The club had earmarked James Whatman Way as the site of a new ground in Maidstone, but until this was built they would have to groundshare outside the town. Maidstone played for a year at Sittingbourne's old Central Park stadium before relocating, along with the "Brickies", to Bourne Park, a converted training pitch behind the main Central Park complex. Unable to generate the funds to build at Whatman Way, The Stones stayed at Bourne Park until 2009, before moving to groundshare with Ashford Town, citing favourable rent and a cut of food and bar takings as the reason for the move. The move to Ashford caused a sharp dip in attendances and the club returned to ground share at Bourne Park for the 2011–12 season; however the club finally moved into James Whatman Way, known as the Gallagher Stadium, at the start of the 2012–13 season.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Maidstone returned to their home town and home crowds surged by 350% to average 1,698 in the league during the 2012–13 season at the club's new Gallagher Stadium. The table below gives a summary of the attendance figures in all of Maidstone United's league games since the club's final season in the Kent County League in the 2000–01 season.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Maidstone fans have traditionally had a strong rivalry with Gillingham. The old Maidstone are the only traditional Kent club to ever join Gillingham in the Football League, and contested a total of 11 games with Gillingham in the old Division 4 and FA Cup in the 1980s and early 1990s. There have been only two matches since the Stones reformed, the first being a mid-season friendly in 2002 at Central Park, and the second being a Kent Senior Cup quarter final tie in 2018, a game which Maidstone won 2–1.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: A rivalry also remains with Tonbridge Angels. Back in the 1970s, the old Maidstone United and the 'Angels' regularly met in the Southern League before Maidstone moved on to become founder members of the National League (then known as the Alliance Premier League). The two clubs were reconciled after Maidstone's reformation, meeting in the 2002–03 FA Cup – with the Stones winning 3–2. The clubs then met regularly in the Isthmian League Premier Division between 2007 and 2011 and again in the 2014–15 season. In January 2015, there was a "confrontation" between Tonbridge Angels coach Barry Moore and a Maidstone supporter after a game between the sides. Moore was banned by the FA for four months following the incident.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Old Southern League foes Ebbsfleet United (then Gravesend & Northfleet) have perhaps become the club's biggest current-day rivals, with the clubs' recent time together in the National League and National League South punctuated by ill-will both at boardroom level and on the terraces.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Stones Live! is a radio station run since 2008, offering commentary from most matches plus other club-related content. It was voted Sports Station of the Year at the 2010–11 Internet Radio Awards. A fanzine site “Plastic Passion” was launched in February 2014, in part to celebrate one of the most successful eras in the club's history. Plastic Passion spawned a spin off book, believed to be the first ever Maidstone United e-book, “When I was Just A Little Boy” in 2016. A second book, this time available in physical form, "Exodus" was published in December 2016, detailing the period between 1988 and 2012 and the struggle to find a permanent home.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: The Football League era saw the birth of four fanzines, "Show Me The Way To Go Home", "Spirit of London Road (aka S.O.L.D)", "Yellow Fever", later renamed "Golden Days", and "The Foundation Stone" which ran for just a couple of issues. In 2000, with the club languishing in the Kent County League, a fanzine known as “SHAFTED!” ran for five issues. By the time the club returned to the Kent League in 2001 the team behind Show Me The Way To Go Home decided to revive it after almost ten years. It ran for several seasons and was highly acclaimed. In 2005 it was named as one of the best 11 fanzines in the country by the Independent, although it had ceased publication before the club returned to Maidstone in 2012. The void was eventually filled by "It's All Gone Amber", which was first published in 2015. It was named after the line uttered by commentator Derek Rae when Frannie Collin scored the winner for Maidstone against Stevenage in an FA Cup first round replay in 2014.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Maidstone's youth and community sides are currently members of the Isthmian Youth League and Kent Youth League as well as being members of various local, women's/girls', deaf and disability leagues.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: The club also runs an Academy, giving over fifty 16 to 18-year-old players the chance to study, train and play at the Gallagher Stadium. Players study for a BTEC Level 3 in Sport and a range of vocational football-related qualifications, and also play in the Conference Youth Alliance.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Maidstone's youth teams have provided many players to the first team in recent years. The most successful and high-profile product of the club's youth system is England international Chris Smalling, who spent three years at the club before moving to Fulham and subsequently to Manchester United and AS Roma. Smalling made a total of 16 appearances for Maidstone, and whilst playing for the club he also played for England Schoolboys' Under 18 side.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: The club has a strong emphasis on football for the community and most of its teams train at the Gallagher Stadium. As well as boys and girls teams at most ages, there are PAN disability and deaf teams. United are a Charter Standard Community Club and were one of the first clubs in the country to sign up to the Deaf Friendly Football Clubs pledge.


title: Maidstone United F.C.

text: Maidstone's best ever league finish came in the 2016–17 season when they came 14th in the National League. Maidstone's highest ever victory came in their first season since reforming, beating Aylesford 12–1 in the Kent County League Division Four. The club's record attendance came at the Gallagher Stadium, when a capacity 4,175 spectators saw Maidstone play Hampton and Richmond on 4 May 2022 in the final game of the 2021–22 Season to see the Stones lift the National League South trophy, the previous highest attendance was 4,105 on 15 July 2017 in a pre-season match to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Gallagher Stadium. The club's appearance record is held by Tom Mills.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: The John Lewis Partnership plc (JLP) is a British company which operates John Lewis & Partners department stores, Waitrose & Partners supermarkets, its banking and financial services, and other retail-related activities. The privately-held public limited company is owned by a trust on behalf of all its employees — known as "Partners" – and a bonus, akin to a share of the profit, is paid to employees. John Lewis has around 80,800 Partners/employees as of 2020. JLP group is the third-largest UK non-traded company by sales in "The Sunday Times" Top Track 100 for 2016. The chain's image is upmarket, and its customers are likely to be more affluent consumers. It was a member of the International Association of Department Stores from 2004 to 2010.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: The Partnership also supplied the Ocado web supermarket with Waitrose own-brand foods and John Lewis own-brand non-food items such as home items e.g. furniture. This deal expired in September 2020, when Marks & Spencer began a new £750 million contract with Ocado.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: John Lewis opened a drapery shop at 132 Oxford Street, London in 1864. Born in Shepton Mallet in Somerset in 1836, he had been apprenticed at 14 to a linen draper in Wells. He came to London in 1856 and worked as a salesman for Peter Robinson, an Oxford Street draper, rising to be his silk buyer. In 1864, he declined Robinson's offer of a partnership, and rented his own premises on the north side of Oxford Street, on part of the site now occupied by the department store which bears his name. There he sold silk and woollen cloth and haberdashery. His retailing philosophy was to buy good quality merchandise and sell it at a modest 'mark up'. Although he carried a wide range of merchandise, he was less concerned about displaying it and never advertised it. His skill lay in sourcing the goods he sold, and most mornings he would go to the City of London, accompanied by a man with a hand barrow. Later he would make trips to Paris to buy silks.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: Lewis spurned holidays and games and devoted himself entirely to the business, which was successful. He invested the money he made from it in residential and small retail properties, many of which he never visited. He expanded the Oxford Street business by renting neighbouring properties on Oxford Street and then along Holles Street, and gradually moved into other classes of merchandise: first the new area of ready-made women's apparel, and later children's wear and furniture. He never held 'sales', saying that he was intent on building a sound, permanent business.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In 1884, aged 48, Lewis married Eliza Baker, a schoolmistress with a university education, who was 18 years his junior. They set up home in a mansion on the edge of Hampstead Heath, for which Lewis made up the name Spedan Tower after his aunt, Ann Speed, and when Eliza bore a son in 1885, he was called John Spedan Lewis. A second son, Oswald Lewis, was born in 1887. After Westminster School, both sons joined Lewis in the business, and he gave each of them a quarter share of it on their twenty-first birthdays.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: There was constant quarrelling between Lewis and his sons. By 1909, Oswald wanted out, and Lewis senior reluctantly agreed to buy back Oswald's quarter share of the business for £50,000 (equivalent to about £4.5 million in 2010). Oswald went to read Law at Oxford, qualified as a barrister, and became a cavalry officer in 1914. He was injured and discharged in 1916, whereupon he accepted an invitation from his father to rejoin the business.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: Lewis had several run-ins with Lord Howard de Walden, his Oxford Street landlord, and in 1903 he spent three weeks in Brixton Prison for defying a court order obtained by de Walden. In 1911, de Walden sued him for libel. Lewis was found guilty, but the jury awarded damages of just a farthing.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In 1906, Lewis bought a controlling interest in the Sloane Square-based business Peter Jones Limited, the eponymous founder of which had died the previous year. Lewis walked from Oxford Street with the £20,000 purchase price in banknotes.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In the next 13 years, the Peter Jones business was unprofitable – no dividends were paid to Lewis and the external shareholders and in desperation, in 1914 Lewis appointed his son Spedan as chairman of Peter Jones. This gave Spedan Lewis complete control, and he decided that the underlying problem was that the staff had no incentive to do a good day's work because their own interests were not in line with those of the business. He shortened their working day and instituted a system of commission for each department, paying selling staff amounts based on turnover. He held regular meetings at which staff could air any grievances directly with him. In 1916, after a disagreement with his father, Spedan Lewis exchanged his 25% interest in the Oxford Street business for Lewis's shares in Peter Jones Limited. He made improvements in staff conditions, including granting a third week's paid holiday each year. He had hot and cold running water installed in the staff bedrooms over the shop. In 1918, he started publishing a fortnightly newspaper telling staff how the business was faring. In 1919, he instituted a staff council meeting, the first decision of which was that staff should be paid weekly instead of four-weekly. The business prospered: there was a profit of £20,000 in 1920. Spedan Lewis's radical idea was that the profits generated by the business should not be paid solely to shareholders as a reward for their capital. Shareholders should receive a reasonable but limited return, and labour should be the recipient of the excess. His concept of 'fairer shares' involved sharing gain, knowledge, and power. In 1920, Spedan started distributing Peter Jones preference shares to staff, who were referred to as "Partners".


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: The early 1920s were not successful for Peter Jones. Dividends on preference shares, many of which were held by employees, were not paid. In 1924, there was a reconciliation between John Lewis and Spedan Lewis. Trade at Oxford Street had fared better, and John Lewis made a cash injection into the Sloane Square business.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In 1925, Spedan Lewis devised the slogan 'never knowingly undersold' at Peter Jones. Intended mainly as a control on sourcing merchandise, it also meant that customers could shop knowing that they were not paying more at Peter Jones than they could buy identical goods for at other stores. This principle, which was refined several times, most notably to exclude retailers who trade only online and to include extended insurance and delivery charges when comparing prices, was honoured up until the August of 2022, when it was replaced with a general commitment to providing competite value on their own label merchandise.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: By 1926, Lewis senior was 90, Spedan was impatient to gain control of John Lewis, Oxford Street so that he could implement his radical ideas there, and Oswald again wanted out. Without telling their father, Spedan took out a bank loan and bought out Oswald's inheritance. After going around the world, Oswald embarked on a political career, becoming Conservative Party MP for Colchester in 1929, and holding the seat until 1945. Spedan Lewis became the sole owner in the Oxford Street business after John Lewis died aged 92 in 1928.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In 1929, Spedan Lewis signed a deed of settlement, which transferred shares in John Lewis & Co. Limited and Peter Jones Limited to trustees. The profits of the combined business would be distributed to its employees, either as cash or as fixed-interest stock in the new company: John Lewis Partnership Limited.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In 1933, JLP started acquiring other retail businesses, buying Jessop & Son of Nottingham, and Lance & Lance of Weston-super-Mare. In 1934, it acquired Knight & Lee in Southsea, and Tyrrell & Green in Southampton. It also started rebuilding Peter Jones to modern design. In 1937, it bought Waitrose Limited, which operated ten counter-service grocery shops in London and the home counties.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: The biggest acquisition came in 1940 when JLP paid £30,000 for Selfridge Provincial Stores Limited, which owned 16 shops: John Barnes in Hampstead, Blinkhorn & Son in Gloucester and Stroud, Bon Marché in Brixton, Buckleys in Harrogate, A H Bull in Reading, Caleys in Windsor, Cole Brothers in Sheffield, Holdrons in Peckham, Jones Brothers in Holloway, George Henry Lee in Liverpool, Pratts in Streatham, Quin & Axten in Brixton, Robert Sayle in Cambridge, Thomsons in Peterborough and Trewin Brothers in Watford, substantially increasing the size of the business.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: The Second World War took its toll, and several stores were damaged by bombing, notably the 'west house' of John Lewis, Oxford Street (on the west side of Holles Street), which was lost completely in September 1940.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In 1950, Spedan Lewis executed a second deed of settlement, which passed ownership of JLP to trustees to hold for the benefit of those who worked in the business. He continued to manage it as if he were still the owner, saying in 1957 that it was necessary to concentrate management in one pair of hands.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: Spedan Lewis also retained for himself the right to choose his successor when he retired on his 70th birthday in 1955. He had originally intended that Michael Watkins, his right-hand man for many years, would succeed him as chairman, but Watkins died in 1950. Spedan asked his son, Edward Lewis if he would fill the role, but he declined. Spedan appointed a loyal, long-serving lieutenant, Bernard Miller, but expressed the hope that in due course Edward would succeed Miller as chairman. In the event, Miller was succeeded by Peter Lewis, the son of Oswald Lewis.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In 1953 JLP sold several small stores but acquired two large ones: Heelas in Reading and Bainbridge in Newcastle upon Tyne. The rebuilt store on Oxford Street was reopened in 1960, and the sculpture "Winged Figure" by Barbara Hepworth was added in 1963.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: To accommodate national advertising, in 2002, the company began the process of renaming department stores not branded as John Lewis (Tyrrell & Green, Heelas, etc.) with the nationally recognisable name. Peter Jones in London remains the sole exception to this policy. The company experimented with smaller format stores, adding 12 At Home shops and 2 Convenience-driven stores, alongside 3 more full-line department stores (Leeds, Stratford, Birmingham).


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In 2012 and 2013, John Lewis faced a series of strikes by cleaners who had been outsourced regarding pay.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: The highest level of the JLP's democratic structure is the Partnership Council, a directly elected body of 58 Partners who both represent opinions from across the Partnership and hold the Chairman to account for their running of the business. Partnership Councillors are company insiders with voting rights, and the only body within the company's governance structures with the power to remove the Chairman from office. Biannually the Council conducts a “Holding to Account” session where the Chairman fields questions from representatives in an open meeting, following which a vote is held which indicates whether or not Councillors support the Chairman's leadership and the progress of the business.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: Further to this structure, the Partnership Council elects three directors to the "Partnership Board". The three Elected Directors join the Chairman, Deputy Chairman, Executive Director Finance, and two further Non-Executive Directors to form the Partnership Board. The Council also elects three individuals to act as Trustees of the John Lewis Partnership.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: Employees of JLP usually receive an annual bonus, akin to a share of the profit. It is calculated as a percentage of salary, with the same percentage awarded to all employees. The bonus is dependent on the profitability of JLP each year, varying historically between 5% and 20% of Partners' annual salaries, but falling to 3% in 2019 in light of tough trading conditions. The annual bonus dropped to 2% in 2020 and it was confirmed that no bonus would be paid in 2021 in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The bonus returned in 2022 paid at a rate of 3%.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In 1999, in response to a fall in profits, there were calls from some employees for the business to undertake an initial public offering and float on the stock market. If this had gone through, each employee stood to receive a windfall averaging £100,000. A company-wide ballot was held regarding the matter which did not approve the proposals.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In 2012, the John Lewis division operated 30 full-line department stores, one John Lewis click and commute at St Pancras railway station, one John Lewis convenience store at Heathrow Airport and 10 John Lewis at Home Stores and a web store. The stores are in a mixture of city centre and out-of-town shopping centre locations. The flagship Oxford Street store in London remains the largest John Lewis outlet in the UK.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: Newer John Lewis at home stores are opening to cater for areas which have no large John Lewis department store near them. They are around a third the size of a normal department store. The first store opened in Poole in October 2009. Croydon followed in August 2010 with Tunbridge Wells and Swindon opening later that year. In Autumn 2011, Tamworth and Chester were opened, followed by Chichester, Newbury and Ipswich in 2012. This type of store contains both Home and Electrical departments with services such as a cafe and 'Click and Collect' also available. A new 'flexible format' store was trialled in Exeter 2012, with a full line of stock in a smaller physical store, relying heavily on 'click and collect'/next day delivery both in-store and out.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: Peter Jones is a large department store in central London. It is a store of JLP and located on Sloane Square, at the junction of King's Road and Sloane Street, in the Chelsea district, close to the Belgravia and Knightsbridge districts. Peter Jones was founded as an independent store but was bought by John Lewis, owner of the eponymous store in Oxford Street, in 1905. In 1929 Lewis's son, John Spedan Lewis, who then owned both businesses, combined them into a single business.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: JLP also owns Waitrose & Partners, an upmarket supermarket chain which has 332 branches and 78,000 employees as of early 2021. Waitrose trades mainly in London and the South of England and was originally formed by Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose, and David Taylor. The company was taken over by JLP in 1937.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: John Lewis Partnership helped finance the creation of Ocado, an independent online supermarket, and later transferred its interest to its pension fund, which owned 29% of Ocado. The pension fund fully divested itself of its final 10.4% share ownership in February 2011 for £152m, which represented a total profit from the company's investment in Ocado of about £220m. In September 2020, the Partnership's relationship with Ocado came to an end.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In June 2004, JLP launched their own credit card, branded Partnership Card, provided by HSBC UK. The card was launched to complement the existing John Lewis and Waitrose account cards. It was announced in May 2022 that the white-label agreement with HSBC would end later that year, with new and existing Partnership Card accounts migrated to a reshaped service run by British financial services company NewDay.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: The company has provided insurance products since it launched Greenbee in October 2006. Later, the Greenbee brand was retired and the services rebranded John Lewis Finance. Initially, it offered home, travel, wedding and events insurance as well as a travel and tickets service. It subsequently expanded to offer other services including car insurance and policies for second homes. John Lewis Finance later branched out into providing pet insurance, as well as creating John Lewis Investments, in partnership with Nutmeg.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: In October 2021, John Lewis Finance released a home insurance advertisement showing a boy in make-up and a dress vandalising his house. The advertisement was banned by the Financial Conduct Authority as misleading, because the insurance plan did not include deliberate damage, as portrayed.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: JLP currently operates one manufacturing business, Herbert Parkinson, in Darwen, Lancashire. This company, established as a weaver of jacquard fabrics in 1934, was acquired by the Partnership in 1953. Herbert Parkinson currently produces John Lewis own-brand fabrics and curtains as well as filled furnishing products such as cushions and pillows. The company operates a wholesale business to outside customers in addition to supplying John Lewis branches.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: Until September 2007, the Partnership also owned two further textile production businesses: Carlisle-based printer Stead McAlpin (founded c. 1875, 200 workers) and Haslingden, Lancashire-based weaver J. H. Birtwistle.


title: John Lewis Partnership

text: The manufacture and sale of furnishing textiles was organised by the business Cavendish Textiles, produced under the trade name of 'Jonelle' from 1937, dropped in 2000 in favour of 'John Lewis'. Designers included many associated with Heal's, such as Lucienne Day and Pat Albeck, as well as Jacqueline Groag.


title: Cedilla

text: A cedilla ( ; from Spanish) or cedille (from French , ) is a hook or tail ( ¸ ) added under certain letters as a diacritical mark to modify their pronunciation. In Catalan, French, and Portuguese (called cedilha) it is used only under the "c" (forming "ç"), and the entire letter is called, respectively, (i.e. "broken C"), , and (or , colloquially). It is used to mark vowel nasalization in many languages of sub-Saharan Africa, including Vute from Cameroon.


title: Cedilla

text: The tail originated in Spain as the bottom half of a miniature cursive z. The word "cedilla" is the diminutive of the Old Spanish name for this letter, (). Modern Spanish and isolationist Galician no longer use this diacritic (apart from , the nickname of the FC Barcelona football team), although it is used in Reintegrationist Galician, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan, and French, which gives English the alternative spellings of "cedille", from French "", and the Portuguese form . An obsolete spelling of "cedilla" is "cerilla". The earliest use in English cited by the "Oxford English Dictionary" is a 1599 Spanish-English dictionary and grammar. Chambers' "Cyclopædia" is cited for the printer-trade variant "ceceril" in use in 1738. The main use in English is not universal and applies to loan words from French and Portuguese such as "façade", "limaçon" and "cachaça" (often typed "facade", "limacon" and "cachaca" because of lack of "ç" keys on English language keyboards).


title: Cedilla

text: With the advent of modernism, the calligraphic nature of the cedilla was thought somewhat jarring on sans-serif typefaces, and so some designers instead substituted a comma design, which could be made bolder and more compatible with the style of the text. This reduces the visual distinction between the cedilla and the diacritical comma.


title: Cedilla

text: The most frequent character with cedilla is "ç" ("c" with cedilla, as in "façade"). It was first used for the sound of the voiceless alveolar affricate in old Spanish and stems from the Visigothic form of the letter "z" (ꝣ), whose upper loop was lengthened and reinterpreted as a "c", whereas its lower loop became the diminished appendage, the cedilla.


title: Cedilla

text: It represents the "soft" sound , the voiceless alveolar sibilant, where a "c" would normally represent the "hard" sound (before "a", "o", "u", or at the end of a word) in English and in certain Romance languages such as Catalan, Galician, French (where ç appears in the name of the language itself, '), Ligurian, Occitan, and Portuguese. In Occitan, Friulian and Catalan "ç" can also be found at the beginning of a word (', ') or at the end (').


title: Cedilla

text: It represents the voiceless postalveolar affricate (as in English "church") in Albanian, Azerbaijani, Crimean Tatar, Friulian, Kurdish, Tatar, Turkish (as in ', ', ', '), and Turkmen. It is also sometimes used this way in Manx, to distinguish it from the velar fricative.


title: Cedilla

text: The character "ş" represents the voiceless postalveolar fricative (as in "show") in several languages, including many belonging to the Turkic languages, and included as a separate letter in their alphabets:


title: Cedilla

text: Gagauz uses Ţ (T with cedilla), one of the few languages to do so, and Ş (S with cedilla). Besides being present in some Gagauz orthographies, T with Cedilla also exists in the General Alphabet of Cameroon Languages, in the Kabyle language, in the Manjak and Mankanya languages, and possibly elsewhere.


title: Cedilla

text: The Unicode characters for Ţ (T with cedilla) and Ş (S with cedilla) were implemented for Romanian in Windows-1250. In Windows 7, Microsoft corrected the error by replacing T-cedilla with T-comma (Ț) and S-cedilla with S-comma (Ș).


title: Cedilla

text: In 1868, Ambroise Firmin-Didot suggested in his book ' (Observations on French Spelling) that French phonetics could be better regularized by adding a cedilla beneath the letter "t" in some words. For example, the suffix ' this letter is usually not pronounced as (or close to) in French, but as . It has to be distinctly learned that in words such as ' (but not ') it is pronounced . A similar effect occurs with other prefixes or within words. Firmin-Didot surmised that a new character could be added to French orthography. A letter of the same description T-cedilla (majuscule: Ţ, minuscule: ţ) is used in Gagauz. A similar letter, the T-comma (majuscule: Ț, minuscule: ț), does exist in Romanian, but it has a comma accent, not a cedilla.


title: Cedilla

text: Comparatively, some consider the diacritics on the palatalized Latvian consonants and formerly to be cedillas. Although their Adobe glyph names are commas, their names in the Unicode Standard are "g", "k", "l", "n", and "r" with a cedilla. The letters were introduced to the Unicode standard before 1992, and their names cannot be altered. The uppercase equivalent "Ģ" sometimes has a regular cedilla.


title: Cedilla

text: In Marshallese orthography, four letters in Marshallese have cedillas: < >. In standard printed text they are "always" cedillas, and their omission or the substitution of comma below and dot below diacritics are nonstandard.


title: Cedilla

text: Because of these font display issues, it is not uncommon to find nonstandard "ad hoc" substitutes for these letters. The online version of the Marshallese-English Dictionary (the only complete Marshallese dictionary in existence) displays the letters with dot below diacritics, all of which do exist as precombined glyphs in Unicode: "", "", "" and "". The first three exist in the International Alphabet of Sanskrit Transliteration, and "" exists in the Vietnamese alphabet, and both of these systems are supported by the most recent versions of common fonts like Arial, Courier New, Tahoma and Times New Roman. This sidesteps most of the Marshallese text display issues associated with the cedilla, but is still inappropriate for polished standard text.


title: Cedilla

text: Vute, a Mambiloid language from Cameroon, uses cedilla for the nasalization of all vowel qualities (cf. the ogonek used in Polish and Navajo for the same purpose). This includes unconventional roman letters that are formalized from the IPA into the official writing system. These include <"i̧ ȩ ɨ̧ ə̧ a̧ u̧ o̧ ɔ̧>."


title: Cedilla

text: The ISO 259 romanization of Biblical Hebrew uses Ȩ (E with cedilla) and Ḝ (E with cedilla and breve).


title: Cedilla

text: Languages such as Romanian add a comma (virgula) to some letters, such as "", which looks like a cedilla, but is more precisely a diacritical comma. This is particularly confusing with letters which can take either diacritic: for example, the consonant is written as "ş" in Turkish but "ș" in Romanian, and Romanian writers will sometimes use the former instead of the latter because of insufficient computer knowledge.


title: Cedilla

text: The Polish letters and and Lithuanian letters and are not made with the cedilla either, but with the unrelated ogonek diacritic.


title: Cedilla

text: Unicode provides precomposed characters for some Latin letters with cedillas. Others can be formed using the cedilla combining character.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: Michelle Georgina Mone, Baroness Mone, ("née" Allan; born October 1971) is a British businesswoman and Conservative life peer. She has set up several businesses, including MJM International Ltd in 1996 and the lingerie company Ultimo along with her then husband Michael Mone. Other ventures include naturopathic 'weight-loss' pills, and a fake tan product via Ultimo Beauty.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: Mone became a Conservative life peer in 2015. From 2020 to 2022, in a series of investigative pieces, "The Guardian" reported that Mone and her children had secretly received £29 million of profits to an offshore trust from government PPE contracts, which she had lobbied for during the COVID-19 pandemic. The House of Lords Commissioner for Standards and National Crime Agency launched investigations into Mone's links to these contracts in January 2022. Mone announced in December 2022 that she was taking a leave of absence from the House of Lords "to clear her name" amid the allegations.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: Born in October 1971, Michelle Allan grew up in Glasgow's East End. She recounted how she had lived with her family in a one-bedroomed house with no bath or shower until she was 10 years old. She also told of how her younger brother, who had spina bifida, died at the age of eight, when she was 10 years old, and that her father, who was suffering from cancer, lost the use of his legs when she was 15.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: She left school aged 15, with no qualifications, to pursue a modelling career. At 17 she met her future husband, Michael Mone, and by 18 years old, she was pregnant with her first child, Rebecca. She then converted from Protestantism to Catholicism and married Michael, an anaesthetist's son from a Catholic family.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: Mone obtained a marketing job with the Labatt brewing company and, within two years, had risen to become its head of marketing in Scotland. She has since said that she invented qualifications to help get the job there. She was then made redundant by the company, prompting her, at the age of 23, to set up her own business using the redundancy compensation she received from Labatt.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In November 1996 she founded MJM International with her then-husband Michael. In August 1999, Mone launched the Ultimo lingerie brand at Selfridges department store in London. Mone came up with the idea for the Ultimo bra, the brand's first product, when she was wearing an uncomfortable cleavage-enhancing bra one day and believed she could create a more comfortable cleavage-enhancing bra. Mone had read about a new silicone product while on holiday in Florida and approached the company to obtain its European licence to produce bras. Mone has claimed that an Ultimo bra was worn by Julia Roberts in the Hollywood movie, "Erin Brockovich", but this was denied by the film's creators. Ultimo went on to include other products, such as backless dresses and shapewear, which led to MJM International's growth.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: Mone left MJM International briefly in 2013 following the breakdown of her relationship with her then husband. The business assets were transferred to its parent firm, Ultimo Brands International Ltd, in a partnership with MAS Holdings. MJM International was then dissolved. In November 2014, Mone sold down her stake in Ultimo Brands International to 20% to partner MAS Holdings. In 2014, a former operations director for MJM won a claim for unfair dismissal from her company after discovering that Mone had authorised electronic bugging of his office.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: Mone threatened to sue her critics when it was revealed her company MJM International had paid a substantial sum of money into a controversial tax avoidance scheme, criticised by Chancellor George Osborne as "morally repugnant". Following a test case brought by HMRC against Rangers Football Club, the scheme utilising an employee benefit trust (the type of tax avoidance scheme used by MJM International) was exposed as ineffective in November 2015. Mone said she had "not done anything wrong" in relation to tax avoidance and that her ex-husband had "dealt with all the finance". In August 2015, Mone resigned her directorships of both MJM and Ultimo, saying she had sold 80% of the latter.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: TrimSecrets were weight loss pills formulated by the “naturopath” Jan de Vries. The product also used diet and exercise advice. In 2006 MJM formed a joint venture with de Vries, taking a 50% share in the product. Mone claimed that exercise and reduced calorific intake had no effect on her weight and credited TrimSecrets pills for her weight loss. Mone falsely claimed the efficacy of the product had been proven in clinical trials. However, when questioned further, she said that approximately 60 users had completed a questionnaire but was unable to produce the results.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In October 2013, Jan de Vries sold his interest in the company with Mone having 60% of the business and a silent business partner the remaining 40%. In August 2015 it was reported that the company had made a loss in each of the last four years for which accounts were available.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In November 2015, Mone was criticised for using her "Baroness Mone"-styled Twitter account to promote TrimSecrets pills, although a spokesman for Mone said she had disposed of her ownership of the firm before her tweet. 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 around nutrition and pseudo-science."


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: On the ITV programme "Loose Women" in 2020, Mone said she lost weight during the COVID-19 lockdown by exercising three times a day. She stated: "When I was overweight and in a very uncomfortable horrible marriage, my way of coping with that was to continuously eat."


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In 2012 Mone's company, Ultimo Beauty, launched a fake tan product. In 2014 when announcing that she had sold most of her stake in Ultimo, she confirmed she had taken 100% control of Ubeauty Global, consisting of the assets of Ultimo Beauty.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In 2016, after she was made a peer, Mone changed the company formation so that it no longer had to publish public trading accounts. In February 2017 accounts for the company were published, covering the time from 2014 to 2016 and it was revealed the company had assets of £23,000. In March 2017, Mone announced that she had sold the company.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In 2017, Mone and her partner Doug Barrowman launched a £250 million residential development in Dubai which they claimed was to be the "first-ever development to be priced in bitcoin". In April 2019, "The Sunday Times" reported that the development was "on hold" with the construction incomplete, while a spokesman for Mone said that it was going "extremely well" and was in the process of being redesigned.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In 2018, Mone and her partner Doug Barrowman launched a cryptocurrency called Equi through a company called Equi Capital. It aimed to raise $80m which would be invested in startup companies. Mone described herself as "one of the biggest experts in Cryptocurrency and Blockchain" and promoted the project as the "bitcoin of Britain". The company recruited 1,000 people to promote the cryptocurrency through social media, but they only raised £1,600. According to Barrowman, £5.4 million of tokens were sold in a "pre-sale offering" but the public sale beginning in March 2018 raised only £540,000. By August 2018, "The Sunday Times" reported that the project had "flopped" and all investors had been refunded. "The Financial Times" reported that it had "ended in a fiasco that exposes the total absence of oversight in the ICO market".


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: Mone says she previously supported the Labour Party, as did her family, but withdrew her support in 2009 after the prime minister, Gordon Brown, increased the top income tax rate to 50%, also indicating that she would leave the UK. She further stated that Brown and his government mismanaged the country's finances during the global economic crisis.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: During the London riots in August 2011, Mone called for the army to be brought in and tweeted "People who riot, steal, cover face deserve zero human rights". In January 2012, she gave an interview to "The Sunday Times" stating her intention to move herself and her business to England were Scotland to become independent following the 2014 referendum on the issue. However, despite Scotland voting No in the referendum, Mone confirmed a few months later that she was leaving Scotland.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: On 10 August 2015, the government announced that Mone would lead a two-part review into entrepreneurship and small businesses, particularly focusing upon setting up small businesses in deprived areas, under the Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith. On 27 August 2015, the prime minister, David Cameron, announced a list of new creations of life peers, including Mone. Her inclusion drew criticism from other business leaders. Some Conservatives questioned her suitability for the House of Lords. "The Scotsman" reported that senior Scottish Conservatives also criticised Cameron's action, with an unnamed Conservative describing Mone as "a public relations creation, a personal brand rather than a serious businesswoman".


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: Mone was criticised on Twitter when her first vote in the House of Lords was to vote against a motion to delay government cuts to tax credits of around £1,300 a year for three million low-income families. Mone responded to the controversy by tweeting that people should "work hard" and not "look for excuses" for their own poverty. In October 2016 she said that she was wrong to support the cuts and she regretted the way she voted.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In her maiden speech in the House of Lords, Mone stated: "I look forward to playing a full and active role in your lordships’ house". "The Times" reported in 2018 that in the previous year, Mone had only attended the House of Lords on 12 % of the days in which it was sitting, missing important debates including on the Brexit bill. Her low attendance led SNP MSP Rona Mackay to describe her as the "Layabout Lady of Mayfair" and businessman Douglas Anderson, who had criticised her original appointment, called for her to resign. By early 2022, Mone had made only five speeches in the House of Lords and asked 22 written questions. As of December 2022, she had not spoken in a debate since March 2020 and had last voted in April 2022.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In October 2020 it was revealed that PPE Medpro, a company led by Anthony Page, a business associate of Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman, had been awarded a contract for £122 million to supply personal protective equipment (PPE) to the NHS during the COVID-19 pandemic. Page resigned as secretary for MGM Media, the company that manages and receives payment for Mone's branding and media engagements and on the same day he formed Medpro. In October 2020, a spokeswoman for Mone stated she "has no role or involvement in PPE Medpro", adding: "Mr Barrowman is also not involved in the company PPE Medpro and is not a Director or Shareholder." It later emerged that a second contract for £80 million was awarded to Medpro even earlier when the company was just 4 weeks old.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In November 2021, a Freedom of Information request revealed that Mone personally recommended the company to the government through its VIP fast-track lane for firms with political connections and that the company was awarded £200 million in government contracts. This high-priority process was set up in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to bypass the normal competitive tender process for procurement that was considered urgent. It further emerged in January 2022 that Mone recommended Medpro for a government contract five days before the company had been formed. At the time, Mone's lawyers stated that she "was not connected to PPE Medpro in any capacity" but documents leaked to "The Guardian" revealed that a director of the company was a long term employee of Mone's husband's company. WhatsApp messages seen by "The Guardian" appeared to show Mone discussing the size of garments that formed part of a contract. Lawyers for Mone and her husband denied the allegations.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: Following a complaint by the Labour peer George Foulkes, the House of Lords commissioner for standards launched an investigation into the relationship between Mone and Medpro in January 2022. On 27 April 2022, Mone's homes in London and on the Isle of Man and associated business addresses were raided by the police, who have launched an investigation into potential fraud. The National Crime Agency is pursuing a tandem investigation into PPE Medpro.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In November 2022, "The Guardian" reported that an Isle of Man trust, of which Mone and her adult children are beneficaries, had received £29 million originating from PPE Medpro via a series of offshore transactions involving Barrowman. Her lawyer had previously said she did not declare PPE Medpro in the House of Lords register of financial interests as "she did not benefit financially and was not connected to PPE Medpro in any capacity."


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: Mone also lobbied for LFI Diagnostics, a company established as a secret entity of her husband Barrowman's family office, Knox family office. A unnamed source told "The Guardian" that Mone was "in a class of her own in terms of the sheer aggression of her advocacy" for LFI Diagnostics. On 6 December 2022, Mone's 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."


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: On 19 December 2022 it emerged that the government would sue PPE Medpro for £122m plus costs. The government said that medical gowns which were supplied by the company "did not comply with the specification in the contract" and could not be used in the NHS. PPE Medpro said it would "rigorously" defend the claim.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: On 21 November 2002, Paisley University awarded her an honorary doctorate. Mone was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her "services to the lingerie industry" in the 2010 New Year Honours.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: After consultation with the College of Arms, on 30 September 2015, she was created a life peer as Baroness Mone, of Mayfair in the City of Westminster. She was introduced in the House of Lords on 15 October by fellow Conservative peers Lord Freud and Baroness Morris of Bolton.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: On 26 December 2018 Mone announced her engagement to Scottish businessman Douglas Barrowman. They were married on 29 November 2020.


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: In December 2021, a wealth manager of Indian heritage accused Mone of sending racist text messages to him after the two were involved in a 2019 yachting incident in Monaco, which resulted in the death of a person. He said that Mone called him "a waste of a man's white skin" via text. A spokesperson for Mone said she was not a racist and "Baroness Mone and her husband have built over 15 schools in Africa in the past three years"; this was followed by a message from her lawyers, who said that Mone could not access her messages and had no "detailed memory of them". Mone's spokesperson said it was "illogical she would have made such a comment or made it with the slightest racist intent as, at the time, she had no knowledge that the complainant was anything other than white British, as his appearance is 100% white, with a cut-glass English accent."


title: Michelle Mone, Baroness Mone

text: The allegations of racism were referred to the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards, but commissioners did not investigate the matter as Mone's comments were said in a personal capacity and not in her capacity as a member of the House of Lords. In January 2022, the Metropolitan Police announced they were investigating the incident after receipt of an allegation of a racially aggravated malicious communication.


title: Yukiko Okada

text: Yukiko Okada was born as Satō Kayo (佐藤佳代) on August 22, 1967, the second daughter of the Satō family. The family later moved to Nagoya. In elementary school, Okada loved to read, especially manga, and she was a talented artist. In junior high school, Okada wanted to become a singer and applied for every possible audition, anything from major productions to the smallest talent recruitment, hoping to become a star. She was rejected every time until she was finally accepted to a TV talent program, "Star Tanjō!" on Nippon Television – similar to "Star Search", though the final stage was her singing to get interest from talent agents – singing Kitahara Sawako's "MY BOYFRIEND" for the audition, and Akina Nakamori's "Slow Motion" for the final round, which she won in March 1983.


title: Yukiko Okada

text: Okada made her debut in 1984, when on April that year, she released her first single, "First Date", written by composer and singer Mariya Takeuchi. She was nicknamed "Yukko" (ユッコ) by her fans, which is a common abbreviation for the name "Yukiko" in the Japanese language. Her smile bore the same name: the "Yukko smile".


title: Yukiko Okada

text: Okada won Rookie of the Year in the year of her debut. and she was awarded the 26th Japan Record Awards Grand Prix Best New Artist Award for her third single, "-Dreaming Girl- Koi, Hajimemashite", also written by Takeuchi.


title: Yukiko Okada

text: Okada played the leading role in her first television drama "Kinjirareta Mariko" ("The Forbidden Mariko"), in 1985. Her 1986 single , written by Seiko Matsuda and composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, reached number one on the Oricon weekly singles chart dated February 10, 1986. (It was later covered by idol girl group Sunmyu as its debut song in 2013.)


title: Yukiko Okada

text: On April 8, 1986, Okada was found with a slashed wrist in her gas-filled Tokyo apartment, crouching in a closet and crying. She was discovered by a rescue team called in by the apartment's manager after other residents noticed the smell of gas. Okada's manager eventually arrived and took her to nearby , where her injuries were treated.