Don’t Menshn Owen Jones

It must have seemed too tempting a target for former Tory MP Louise Mensch, now representing the distant constituency of Manhattan Upmarket: Owen Jones, another of those rotten lefties and someone who actually believes what he says, rather than pretending to believe something because Rupert Murdoch might smile favourably on those who duly believe in what he wants them to.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

Sadly, indulging in another bout of trolling merely served to show that Ms Mensch is not just a troll, but also serially dishonest and a hypocrite to boot (which some of us had already figured out). And that’s before she gets her fictitious characters mixed up. Had Jones (good appearance on The Andy Marr Show (tm) sofa last Sunday) done anything wrong, then? Well, no, but Ms Mensch ain’t fussed about details.

“You know Owen Jones is the Katie Hopkins of the left he says stupid things to get on the telly” she trolled (he’s already on the telly, but whatever). And she got a reply: “No, I have lifelong convictions which I back up with facts, which [an] unabashed self-publicist like yourself will never understand”. Louise was confused by such a forthright reply. “Oh get over yourself, Roger Mellie” she sniped.

Jones decided to leave her to it, concluding “Wow. You’re not very pleasant, are you? I’ll leave you to keep demeaning yourself if that’s OK”. Ms Mensch kept up the trolling: “Whatever Katie. Off you toddle”. Quite apart from not knowing who Roger Mellie is (I’m yet to hear Owen Jones say “hello, good evening and bollocks”), this demonstrates that she is totally free of principle.

Consider this exchange from last November: Ms Mensch winds up the Guardian’s Michael White, getting the reply “Lou, you’ve got to stop relying on Fox News for your information. I’m sure the whips explained why in your previous life”. This was met with a reply in kind: “Mike, I get my information from boasts of Guardian editors online and by actually reading the NYT”.

But by last month, using the term “Lou” brought forth a sour and stern response: “My name is Louise. You need not use any name but do not patronize a female opponent with the diminutive she doesn’t use”. So it’s bad to abbreviate her name, but quite OK to call Owen Jones “Roger Mellie” or even “Katie”. And don’t even mention trolling, because this is only done by other people.

Michael White was again the recipient of this information, when Ms Mensch jumped in on an exchange between him and me, telling “Tim is a notorious troll I blocked long ago”. And as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, she hasn’t blocked me, and two, saying “look over there at a troll I invented” won’t work. She’s a troll, she’s a hypocrite, and she’s a liar.

So there may yet be an opening at Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse).