Don’t Menshn Nick Davies

Nick Davies, who brought us Flat Earth News, the go-to book on the workings of the Fourth Estate, has recently brought out Hack Attack, subtitled “How the truth caught up with Rupert Murdoch”. From this, we can easily deduce that the book concentrates mainly on phone hacking and other less than savoury practices within the Murdoch empire. This Davies does.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

He also notes that the now defunct Screws was not the only title where phone hacking was going on, and names the Mirror titles as also enjoying the benefits of this dubious practice. But, as Hack Attack is now to be made into a film, at the instigation of George Clooney, the press blowback against Davies has begun. Zelo Street has already covered the lame attack by Stephen Glover in the Mail.

And now, responding to Her Master’s Voice, has come Louise Mensch to remind everyone why her no longer being an MP is A Good Thing. “Trinity Mirror admits to systematic phone hacking? I must have missed all their chapters in the fearless [Nick Davies] hacking book” she trilled. “Hack Attack names the Mirror’s private investigators, describes hacking and blagging at Mirror papers” replied Davies.

Yes, he covered that, although, by necessity, most of the book is about the Murdoch press. She was not happy. “Why did you entirely omit the car crash hearing of Myler and Crone before the select committee?” she demanded. Again, Davies had to refresh her memory: “Hack Attack also includes committee finding that Myler and Crone lied”. Mensch 0, Davies 2. Game over.

But Mensch connoisseurs know that this can never be the case, and back she came: “It wholly omits the session in which their testimony about what they told James Murdoch was ripped apart ... what is amusing, if a little sad, is that you do not even have a pretence to objectivity. Simply pretended it never happened”. That last sentence is, to no surprise, totally untrue.

Davies left her with one telling comment: “You’ve fired two shots at me today. Both wrong. Your own objectivity is what’s missing”. And that last sentence is totally correct: objectivity and Louise Mensch do not sit well together. But she couldn’t accept that, and so carried on wibbling: “Your book has no mention of systematic Mirror hacking nor of the Myler/Crone Murdoch session. Dire propaganda”.

If you believe that, you’ll believe anything. The Murdoch Times observed “Yes, Nick, you should be writing books with Louise Mensch in mind as an objective reader”, while Andy Cavster observed “Also there is no dashing hero, no wizards and not a mention of teenage vampires ... what was he thinking?”  But she who deliberately smeared Piers Morgan twice under Parliamentary privilege was by now silent.

Obedient Murdoch toady ends up flat on face. No change there, then.