mensch vs morgan

 

There are people with high hopes for Louise Mensch, not least Louise Mensch herself. Other than being more glamorous than most MPs, she's clever, confident, a very good communicator, and not your average Tory. Whether she has other attributes required to rise to the top, like good judgement, remains to be seen. On the basis of this incident, you'd have to say she has a steep learning curve. This clip is self-explanatory (it's not often one feels sympathy for Piers Morgan but...). Mensch still hasn't commented on it as far as I'm aware.

What seems to have happened is that she read something on Guido Fawkes and then used it as the basis of a question in the House of Commons, before the biggest audience any select committee meeting has ever had, without checking the source. It's not like Morgan's book is hard to access. Deeply erratic behaviour.

Putting that aside, her questioning of the Murdochs wasn't very good. She had a vague idea of where she wanted to go with it - she wanted to establish that the NOTW's hacking took place in a wider Fleet Street culture of casual criminality. But I'm not sure the Murdochs were the best people to confirm or deny that. Worst of all, she fell into the poor interrogator's trap of asking very long, rambling questions that ended with an invitation to waffle rather than with a hook.

All future select committee questioners should watch the tape of Tom Watson's opening interrogation of Rupert Murdoch again and again, until they learn that the best way to approach a tricky session like that is to (a) Have a clear strategy, (b) Stick to it, especially when there are attempts to throw you off, (c) Keep your questions short and pointed. It was a masterful performance. Given the enormity of the occasion, the fame of the key witness, and the knowledge that millions were watching, it must have taken balls of steel for Watson to pursue his questioning in the calm, clinical and gently persistent way that he did. Murdoch didn't have much to say but at the very least Watson proved that there was a void at the top of the company.

(Mensch's Yiddish-inflected name, in case you were wondering, comes from her marriage to a Jewish-American called Peter Mensch, a rock music impresario who manages Metallica. Like I said, not your average Tory).

Comments

[Anthony]

I'll offer up a partial defence. I certainly think it's fair to say that she did not have a very good day. Combined underperformance with a significant blunder. The question is whether or not she learns from it and I suspect she is clever and conscientious enough to do so. More broadly I think her instincts are good. She is on the right side of the argument more often than not. She also works hard and appears to be developing a reputation for treating her staff (not just her personal crew but the various people who keep parliament running) well. Overall I'd rate her as above average with the potential to be excellent. But we'll see.

That said, there's zero doubt that Tom Watson was the star. I'm far from sympathetic to him politically, but his work on this has been a model of how backbench politicians can influence events substantively (as opposed to trawling the TV studios hawking their conscience, Clare Short, Jeremy Corbyn, Glenda Jackson etc). He has every right to be very pleased with his own performance. The next time awards are being handed out, he deserves something.

[abdevilliers]

Interesting that the Select Committee was seen as a chance for MPs to perform more than anything else.

She's an idiot. Her husband's mental.

[David]

It's interesting that you think Ms Mensch performed poorly at the select committee, since the Economist's Bagehot columnist believes that she did well, despite previously being unimpressed by her: http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/07/british-press-and-phone-hacking-scandal-8

I personally find it fascinating that two intelligent people (by which I mean two people I tend to agree with a lot of the time) can watch the same event and come up with radically different conclusions

[Mia]

Louise Mensch deserves an apology from everyone on this comment page that called her an unpleasant name such as an idiot. The Murdochs, Piers, and others will be shown for what they are as more and more people with balls, guts, and decency, come forward with the truth. James Hipwell who worked under Piers at the Mirror, has come forward and said he will testify and give evidence that Piers was aware of Hacking and took part. So let's not call Louise any more names, until all the investigations are over. Otherwise, you will look like the idiot.

[Abe Silberstein]

While I understand the rationale for parliamentary immunity and privilege, shouldn't there be a line in the sand by outright defamation? 

[erin newby]

when you say "more glamorous" do you mean pretty?

[Marbury]

Yes. Perhaps 'comely'.

[erin newby]

how tiresome that we must, simply must, make mention of a woman's looks before we move onto her abilities. i understand that appearance plays a role in politics, though less so in the uk than in the states. and i don't single you out: this habit of describing a woman's appearance first permeates almost all journalism/commentary, be it written by a male or a female. that said, it drives me up the wall and i don't think your post would have been any less interesting or insightful were "other than being more glamorous than most MPs" not included.

[Marbury]

Erin - I take your point, and I should have put it differently. By putting 'glamorous' first I didn't mean to imply it was her most important attribute though perhaps it seems that way.

I have to say I find this question difficult. We all notice when someone looks strikingly different from their peers, in whatever field, and it seems unnatural not to mention it. When writing about politics, I'd hate not to be able to refer to the orange tones of John Boehner's skin or the prettiness of Chukka Umunna.

Having said that I agree that women get this more than men and that's unfair and deeply annoying. I'm sorry I inadvertently reinforced that convention.

[erin newby]

i agree it's very difficult. i do it myself and i loathe it. i have a hard time working out whether it's our nature or social conditioning but i do think we should fight against it either way, unless the physicality of the subject is genuinely extraordinary (usually the only instance in which men get the looks-first treatment). the nauseating criticisms of hillary clinton are a case in point: which normal-looking, normal-dressing male politician could ever have been subjected to the level of repulsive scrutiny and snark she's endured?

i rather liked mensch, thought she stood out from the others on the committee not because she's young and pretty but because she was articulate and forceful and determinedly blithe and unimpressed by the murdochs. and yeah, in the immediate sense, also because she's young and pretty but we all saw that on screen, it doesn't - i think - have a place in commentary. perhaps i'm being idealistic but i wish we could make an effort to stop talking about it, and maybe we'd eventually retrain ourselves to evaluate women (and men) on their, well, valuable qualities.

[Marbury]

I think people's physical appearances do have a place have in commentary. What people look like always tells us something about who they are. In fact it can tell us a lot more than their words. The first thing a novelist does is describe what a character looks like, and the good ones do so because they know that character is rooted in corporeality.

Maybe the problems with political commentary etc are that not only do we tend to over-emphasise the appearance of women more than men, but even more problematically we do so using cliches ('glamorous') that imply a whole lot of crappy stereotypes. So I'm suppose I'm arguing for better descriptions of physicality rather than none.

[erin newby]

hmm, i still think - as i always have - that you're a dreadful person.

[Marbury]

That is indisputable.