Don’t Menshn Old Holborn

There are some people out there on Twitter who, let us not drive this one round the houses for too long, just don’t care if you take offence. And some of them are quick to identify those who are sitting in extremely draughty glasshouses. Common sense should dictate that those intent on throwing their weight about would be best advised to steer clear of anyone like that. But someone over there in New York City doesn’t do common sense.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

Yes, (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch has gambled her stack of credibility chips on getting the better of Robert Ambridge, aka Old Holborn, free speech fundamentalist extraordinaire. And that was not the wisest of moves, especially when her chosen specialist subject was bringing Ambridge’s children into the debate for the sole purpose of asserting that he was not a loving father to them.

So she was looking to provoke a reaction, and it seems she was successful, although not in the way she might have liked. “Noting that a Twitter bully who hides behind a mask is as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside” she sniped, tagging Ambridge in order to make sure he saw it. Why is she doing this? Ah well. He’s been given the opportunity to say his piece in the Sun today. That’s her patch - well, for now.

Then she cranked the attack up a little: “Robert Ambridge has six children, and he can’t love any of them, no loving father would use the death of a 6 year old”. She’s referring to one of Old Holborn’s frequently tasteless snarks, on this occasion seeing that a young child had died and then suggesting that the parents would be best advised putting her Wendy House on eBay. I did say he was a free speech fundamentalist.

But having doled out the provocation, Ms Mensch could not complain at what happened next. Back came Old Holborn: “Christ. Louise Mensch is trying to troll Old Holborn. Megalolz”. The photo is of Ian Watkins, convicted paedophile and former lead singer of Lostprophets, a band formerly managed by QPrime, one of whose bosses is Peter Mensch. Ms Mensch is hot on child abusers until someone mentions that.

Ambridge also lost no time in digging out an old Tweet from Ms Mensch in which she had said “Got to say, the [Lostprophets] new album cover is proper rock’n’roll”. There she was, promoting an album from a band whose lead singer is not going to be out of jail for a quarter of a century - if he comes out at all.

And, just to finish off his evisceration of Ms Mensch, Ambridge then Tweeted “I would post pictures of my loving teenage daughters but … Ian Watkins … Luke Bozier”. Bit unfair on Bozier, who has not been convicted of any offence, but once again, Ms Mensch has no room to bring up the subject when Lostprophets is there in the background.

The result is that, because he just doesn’t care, Robert Ambridge ends up winning. And Louise Mensch obviously does not. They clearly don’t teach common sense at Oxford.