Don’t Menshn Newark

As the dust settles on the by-election contest in Newark-on-Trent, we can look back and see yet another display of pointless dishonesty, abuse and sheer stupidity that no political party needs, but some who pretend to support them tend to, and do so with worrying ease. Yes, from the distant constituency of Manhattan Upmarket, there was compulsory post-match analysis from Louise Mensch.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

And once again, anyone in the Tory Party needs to take a long hard look and ask just how someone so distant from reality can have been allowed to stand for elective office under their banner: Ms Mensch’s wackiness may bring unintentional hilarity, but she should never, but never, have been let into a selection meeting, far less given a seat on an important Commons select committee.

But, for once, she begins her journey with a note of thanks to the junior Coalition partners: “Note to fellow Tories. If we asked Lib Dem voters to lend us their votes and they did, don’t laugh at Lib Dems. We may need their votes again”. So remember, members of the Blue Team, none of that gratuitously slagging off Corporal Clegg and his motley platoon.

I mean, Ms Mensch wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing, would she? Er, now you come to mention it, well, yet she would: “Who has the bigger alcohol problem, Charles Kennedy or Nigel Farage?” she asked, thus, er, gratuitously slagging off the Lib Dems by kicking the bloke who led them to their highest number of MPs since David Lloyd George in 1929. Stay classy, eh?

Then came a change of tack befitting someone with aspirations to join the roster of hosts at Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse): “That sound you hear [is] not the fall of morning dewdrops. It’s the sweet sound of BBC tears as their ‘big up UKIP to let Labour in’ plan crashes”. Yes, if you’re going to pull a whopper, make sure it’s a screamingly gaga one.

And while she’s on the subject of Labour, the party that left the Tories and Kippers to kick lumps out of one another, there is more room for forthright dishonesty: “[Robert Jenrick] MP majority LARGER than entire Labour vote – this was their seat til 2005”. Dates are never her strong suit, are they? Labour held Newark from 1997 to 2001, when boundary changes loaded the dice against them. Still, pesky facts, eh?

Then it’s back to UKIP and more of that combination of smear and dishonesty that is no problem when Ms Mensch hands it out to others: “Farage said only his German wife could be his expenses-paid secretary as ‘worked late’. Wasn’t asked to take notes on his Ugandan discussions”. That’s probably because there is no evidence that there were any such discussions. But, hey, facts again, eh Louise?

Exactly how did this person become an MP? Hopefully it won’t happen again.