Louise mensch

Watch: Louise Mensch’s disastrous Sunday Politics interview

Since Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, few critics have been more persistent than Louise Mensch. The former Tory MP — and Heat Street journalist — has regularly become the ire of Trump supporters over her reports and theories relating to the relationship between the new leader of the free world and Russia. Today Mensch appeared on the Sunday Politics to discuss her claims. Alas, when asked by Andrew Neil what evidence she had to prove that Trump’s team were complicit with the Russians, Mensch appeared to come up short: LM: There’s a mound of evidence. You could start with him saying ‘hey Russia, if you’re listening

Louise Mensch adds one more Twitter gaffe to her list

Here we go again. As the world mourns the death of Leonard Cohen — the great songwriter — at the age of 82, Louise Mensch has managed to add yet another Twitter gaffe to her ever-growing list. On hearing the news, the former Tory MP took to her social media to hail it as proof of America’s ‘enduring greatness’ unlike… Russia, which by comparison is ‘joyless’: Alas there is a snag with her latest piece of Putin-bashing — Leonard Cohen is actually Canadian. This is just one in a series of social media blunders: 2. Last year she attempted to demonstrate the ‘sewer that is Jeremy Corbyn’s support’ by pointing out that Twitter’s autocomplete

Louise Mensch adds yet another Twitter gaffe to her list

Louise Mensch has once again become the subject of much ridicule online over something she has tweeted. The incident occurred last night after the former Tory MP claimed Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters — who have recently been accused of being anti-semitic — were insulting Corbyn’s Labour leadership rival Liz Kendall. Mensch claimed that Twitter’s autocomplete function showed that the most common search words to appear by Liz Kendall’s name were ‘Nazi’, ‘Zionist’ and ‘Jews’. To prove this Mensch even offered a photo of the ‘auto searches’ to demonstrate the ‘sewer that is Jeremy Corbyn’s support’. Alas there was a catch. As each suggestion appeared next to an ‘x’, this means that the words were her own search history rather than the work

War of words: Louise Mensch vs Peter Hitchens (or could it be Steerpike?)

While Mr S is used to reporting from the sideline on Twitter wars, he tends to refrain from taking part in them. So Steerpike was amused to find himself in Louise Mensch’s firing line this morning. His sin? Being Peter Hitchens, apparently. Mensch accused the Mail on Sunday columnist of being the author of this very column. She said that unlike Hitchens, she didn’t write stories about him. When Hitchens pointed out that he hadn’t written about Mensch for seven years, the former Tory MP suggested that he was in fact… Mr Steerpike: While Mr S is sorry to break the news that he is not, in fact, Hitchens, happily, this

Is Zac Goldsmith too posh to run for Mayor of London?

Given that Zac Goldsmith once likened the possibility of himself running for City Hall to ‘a suicide mission‘, it comes as little surprise that not everyone in the Tory camp is ecstatic about the Richmond Park MP’s rumoured London mayoral bid. Mr S understands that there are concerns that after Labour increased its control of the capital in the general election, the Old Etonian, who is currently the odds-on favourite to be the Conservative candidate, may be viewed as too posh to appeal to the more diverse London boroughs. As a result, Steerpike hears that there is growing support in the Conservative camp for Syed Kamall to go for the top job. As the working-class

Louise Mensch backs George Osborne to be the next Tory leader

All this talk from Labour and the Liberal Democrats about who will be their next party leader appears to have got to the Tory camp. Although the dust is yet to settle following David Cameron’s surprise Conservative majority in the election, Mensch couldn’t help but offer her prediction for who the next Tory Prime Minister will be, when asked over Twitter. The former Cameron Cutie says that the man for the job next time around is not odds-on favourite Boris Johnson, but instead George Osborne: She claims that Bojo’s chance has come and gone: Of course, whether Boris would agree with Mensch’s statement is another issue entirely.

Louise Mensch’s love for David Cameron reaches new lows

Louise Mensch has never been one to hide her love for her former boss David Cameron. However, their relationship took a hit earlier this year when the Prime Minister’s decision to pay tribute to the late King Abdullah resulted in Mensch blasting Cameron on Twitter. Happily, the pair have since made up and Mensch is supporting Cameron in the election. In fact her support is so strong that as well as donating thousands of pounds to Tory candidates to help them campaign, Mensch is also trying to collect some David Cameron stash. Mr S sees that Mensch – who was once heralded as a  ‘Cameron Cutie’ – has entered a competition on Twitter in a bid

War of words: Karen Danczuk in Twitter spat with Sunday Times columnist

During her time as a Labour councillor, Karen Danczuk has managed to have bust-ups with women in both the Conservative party and her own. As well as Danczuk’s ongoing spat with Louise Mensch over her revealing selfies, she claimed last month that Harriet Harman had told her to join Girls Aloud – something Harman has denied. With Danczuk now stepping down from local politics to focus on a career in the media, there are two new ladies in her firing line. The outspoken ‘Selfie Queen’ has taken umbrage with a comment made about her by the Sunday Times columnist Katie Glass. Glass took to Twitter yesterday to josh that she was worried she would look like Danczuk if she took a holiday selfie of herself.

Politicians needn’t be so afraid of saying what they think

Politicians know they need to be more natural, less spun, and more honest about what they think. But most of them carry on sounding unnatural, spin-doctored and cagey because they’re worried about the media will do to them if they speak their minds. They fear being pounced upon by journalists keen to write up their latest ‘gaffe’. But this week we’ve seen two politicians saying what they think without any major repercussions. Example one comes from Boris Johnson in his interview with Tim Shipman. The Mayor was asked whether he watched Coronation Street or Eastenders: ‘Um. What a world we live in where you are felt to be out of

Louise Mensch blasts David Cameron for King Abdullah tribute

Although Louise Mensch was once heralded as a ‘Cameron Cutie,’ the former Conservative MP’s relationship with the Prime Minister has soured after he paid tribute to the late King Abdullah. The Saudi Arabia monarch’s death was announced yesterday, with the cause of death thought to be a lung infection. Speaking following the news, Cameron gushed that he would be remembered for his ‘commitment to peace and for strengthening understanding between faiths’. However, the fact that his reign in Saudi Arabia has seen a higher number of beheadings than those carried out by Isis appears to have not escaped Mensch’s attention. She took to Twitter to say that if Cameron or any other Conservative politician dared praise Abdullah in spite of his treatment of women, she would

After the Pope’s Synod-on-family fiasco, let’s judge Catholicism on Catholic terms

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_2_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Luke Coppen and Cristina Odone join Freddy Gray to discuss divorced Catholics.” startat=1053] Listen [/audioplayer] The Church’s extraordinary Synod on the family hasn’t gone down terribly well with secular pundits. It’s been billed as a failure on the BBC, which declared that gay Catholic groups are ‘disappointed’ with the inability of the Synod to make progress towards acknowledging gay relationships. Other groups are similarly disappointed by the Synod’s refusal to admit divorced and remarried people to communion. As Damian Thompson observes, Pope Francis probably has no-one but himself to blame, in that he allowed so much of the pre-Synod discussion to focus on these contentious areas. All the

Spectator letters: St Augustine and Louise Mensch, war votes and flannel

Faith and flexibility Sir: What a contrast in your two articles on religion last week: one liberal atheist parent (Claire Stevens) concerned about her son’s turn to conservative Islam, and one conservative Catholic (Louise Mensch) determined that her children understand her unbending fidelity to the tradition.  Ms Mensch’s problem is endemic throughout the western church, Catholic and Protestant alike: greater confidence in human sinfulness than in God’s forgiveness. Mrs Stevens’s problem is the opposite: a lack of confidence in her atheism. Brought up to believe in nothing, one is prone to believe in anything. At least if you bring a child up Christian, he can always choose to reject the

Douglas Carswell: Darling of the Tories, Labour and now Ukip

This is no ordinary defection. It would be easy for the Tories to brush off a member of the old guard as a swivel-eyed headbanger, but Douglas Carswell is not only a darling of the grassroots, he’s also extremely popular in the House. And not just amounst Tories. As Mr S reported last year from Carswell’s book launch, Tristram Hunt is a big fan: ‘In Douglas and his manifesto we have not as the whips office suggest a ranter, not a digger or a muggle-tonian but a true agitator with a modern Leveller tract, a 21st Century agreement of the people, and if the tools of the 1640s were the

Podcast: Britain’s jihad, the Pope vs the Vatican, and the existence of ‘The One’

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_21_August_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Britain’s jihad, the Pope vs the Vatican, and the existence of ‘The One'” fullwidth=”yes”] The View from 22 podcast [/audioplayer]The murder of James Foley by an Isis fighter ‘with a London accent’ has been treated with understandable revulsion. But we shouldn’t be surprised, says Douglas Murray in his cover piece this week. On this week’s podcast, he outlines how Britain came to be the West’s leading producer of ‘foreign fighters’. Shiraz Maher, one of Britain’s leading authorities on radicalisation, joins him, and explains why the British jihadis are regarded as some of the most vicious and extreme fighters. Just what is really going on in Pope Francis’s pontificate?

Louise Mensch fat shames ISIS’s leader

After Obama sanctioned attacks on ISIS over the weekend, a new hashtag began to trend on Twitter  – #AmessagefromISIStoUS. Via social media, militants from the Islamic State began to threaten anyone who dared to get involved in the Middle East. Before long, the backlash began, with Americans sending messages back to jihadis under the hashtag #AmessagefromUStoISIS. The ex-Tory MP Louise Mensch couldn’t resist, and duly joined in this hawkish exchange: It’s true Obama got #ISIS all wrong and Iraq policy all wrong but I don’t care, not today. He is sending airstrikes. Thank you Mr. President — Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) August 8, 2014 Some left wingers pretty upset ISIS are being bombed. I’m

Podcast: a misogynistic reshuffle, punishment for ministers and why right-wing women are sexier

In this week’s Spectator, Melissa Kite argues that David Cameron’s reshuffle has been soured by misogyny. The PM doesn’t want the new women in his cabinet to do anything but look nice, she says. Louise Mensch begs to differ. She argues that talented women are rising to the top because they are impressive, and it’s offensive to suggest otherwise. Martha Gill discusses this with her on this week’s podcast. The reshuffle wasn’t all about women though. In his column this week, Charles Moore argues that Cameron has punished the ministers who were brave and active, and target-bombed his party’s natural supporters. He discusses this with Fraser Nelson in the podcast.

Janet Street Porter chickens out of Mensch showdown

Gobby Janet Street Porter has been silenced – for today at least. She pulled out of this morning’s edition of the BBC’s Daily Politics just two hours before broadcast when she discovered that Louise Mensch was being patched in from New York to take her on. There’s history here. JSP once said that Mrs Mensch resides in the ‘slop bucket of females who’ve let the side down’. Sources tell Mr S that JSP didn’t want to defend her words. Pity, as it would have been quite the catfight.

PMQs sees Miliband press Cameron on his party’s ‘problem with women’

Today was not a good PMQs for David Cameron. Ed Miliband went on the issue of whether the Tory party has a ‘problem with women’ and was handed a huge helping hand by the fact that the front bench was all male. It made Miliband’s point for him. It was also sloppy planning by the Tories given that Harriet Harman had used this line of attack on Michael Gove on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday. listen to ‘PMQs: Cameron ‘failing women across his party and across the country’’ on Audioboo But this doesn’t explain why Cameron was quite so off in response. He did mention that the Tories had

Bloomberg will buy the Financial Times — but only if it jettisons The Economist

How much would you stump up for the Economist? Most of us would draw the line at a fiver, but I’m told that Mike Bloomberg, mayor of New York, is drawing the line at £300 million. Bloomberg is busy relocating to London and he’s poised to snap up the Financial Times later this year. But the Pink ’Un comes with a 50 per cent share in the Economist. And the small print conceals a pesky restrictive covenant that prevents the owner from replacing the editor. This is proving a drag for Bloomberg, who admires the Economist’s boss, John Micklethwait, but who sees little sense in buying a ship if he can’t

Mensch to date night Dave: you’ve lost the battle

Mr Steerpike spotted an interview in today’s Evening Standard with ex-Westminster luminary Louise Mensch. Across a double page spread, she offers her tips on keeping a marriage alive. In particular, she suggests relationships based around romantic ‘date nights’ are a sham: ‘By the time you’ve got to that, you’ve already lost the battle … You’ve got to grab him when he comes out of the shower every day. You can’t save it for a special evening’ Unfortunately for Mrs. Mensch, her ex-boss feels otherwise. Young Dave has been frequently spotted hitting the town with his better-half Sam on just such a night. He’s even spoken of his appreciation for frequent date nights: ‘We have one night a week