Louise Mensch - A Word In Your Ear

Hello Louise.

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things. Things like fact and fiction, truth and lies, facts and opinion, criticism and bullying, intellectual process and rabble rousing, disapproval and sadistic pursuit, task closure and character destruction, interest and obsession, correction and harassment.

Some or all of these concepts may be familiar to you. What may not be familiar are self-awareness, humility, apology, restraint, and something that, as a Christian - you do, I recall, identify as a Christian - you should hold dear: forgiveness.

Why am I taking time out to address you? Well, someone has to. You haven’t listened to anyone else, and there are things that you need to hear, like them or no.

When two or more people disagree about a recollection of events, that does not make one party truthful and the other a liar. Nor does it make one good and the other bad. It does not entitle any other party to intervene and indulge in a campaign of not just shaming, but of deliberate humiliation and, ultimately, of character destruction.

There is no entitlement to whipping up hate mobs. Not for you, or for anyone else.

You do know what I am alluding to here.

We are, regretfully, back at the continuing fallout from your distinctly zealous defence of scientist Tim Hunt. It is a defence so zealous that it verges on damaging the very person it is meant to support: Hunt has given your campaign his tacit approval.

You have, in conducting your defence of Hunt, not merely criticised others, but lashed out at them, name-calling, browbeating, accusing, all the time shouting “liar”. All others are liars, Louise, but never you. You are above such behaviour.

But you are, as is well-known, not above such behaviour. You did, after all, first come to the attention of the wider public when you lied, openly, premeditatedly and deliberately under the protection of Parliamentary privilege, about then CNN host Piers Morgan. The video where you decline to repeat your lies outside Parliament is still available to view; it is included here so all, including your own supporters and defenders, may view it.

When you shout “liar” at Deborah Blum, Connie St Louis, Sue Nelson, David Colquhoun, Dan Waddell, Paula Higgins, and all others who disagree with you, do not forget who really did lie, very publicly, and while serving as a Member of Parliament.

When others make an honest mistake, change their minds, or just suffer a memory lapse, you would do well to stop and think before, once again, shouting “liar” at them. There are so many examples of your doing this yourself that one is spoiled for choice.

As time is short, I will restrict the charge sheet to a series of mis-speaks and misattributions on the case of the Sudanese women Meriam Ibrahim, the laugh-out-loud claim that Charlie Hebdo was a real person, the claim in your now-defunct Sun column that there had been an EU coup in Portugal (totally untrue), your pursuit of the HuffPost over Channel 4 presenter Cathy Newman, and your accusation against the BBC that their Songs Of Praise programme that featured a church in a Calais refugee camp  was a fake because the worshippers were Muslims (also totally untrue).

You would not take kindly to anyone shouting “liar” at you for all or any of that. Yet you are more than willing to take that approach to others.

One area where you have proved sensitive, and very recently, is the thought that your behaviour had spilled over into harassment. You challenged Graham Linehan earlier today to provide a citation to his assertion that you had harassed a 17 year old girl. But you know he is referring to Abby Tomlinson of Milifandom fame. And you know what Ms Tomlinson said about what you were doing. And you were doing it during the run-up to her “A” Levels, in the middle of her period of revision.

You have made many comments recently accusing others of some kind of defamatory behaviour, either slander of libel. Once again, the unfortunate Connie St Louis has been a regular target. Yet your claim that she libelled Tim Hunt will not result in any action, as there has been no libel.

Moreover, you seem to forget that you have deliberately libelled others recently: Paddy French of Press Gang was not happy that you called him a hacker. The man otherwise known as Joe Public suffered a yet more egregious defamation: you accused him of both hacking and stalking. On both counts, you were plain flat wrong. You are in no position to claim the moral high ground on that subject.

But what is worse than all these failings, Louise, is the obsessive and sadistic bullying in which you have indulged, and continue to indulge.

You deceived Connie St Louis very deliberately over her appearance on BBC’s The Big Questions: what she did not know was that you had colluded with one of the other guests. You used that collusion against her, and have continued to do so. She made a mistake during the broadcast - it was, after all, live - and you instigated a campaign of bullying against her.

Ms St Louis accepted she had made a mistake; she could have just ignored the social media assault, but decided to do the right thing. Her statement via the BBC was the signal for yet more bullying. This bullying has gone beyond the obsessive to the vicious and sadistic. Yet you keep on, apparently determined to destroy her. Let us understand this well: you want Connie St Louis to lose her job.

That would not be the first time you have tried to deprive someone of their livelihood.

Why you should behave in this way does not so much anger others as mystify them. They, after all, would either instinctively back away from such excess, or someone close to them would urge restraint.

But I suspect, Louise, that there is nobody there - at least, not anyone to whom you are prepared to listen - to urge that restraint upon you.

And so on goes the escalation of your campaign, lashing out at your demons, all those “liars”, who in reality are human beings, as you are. Fallible. Flawed. Yes, Human.

Others have tried to reason with you: Jon Ronson urged caution only today. He immediately identified the problem as bullying.

And there’s the problem, Louise: you’re doing it, but cannot stop. Worse, you cannot accept that you are doing it. You can’t even begin to see that this is harming not just you, but Tim Hunt as well. While he remains silent on the subject, he is by inference accepting what you are doing on his behalf.

You don’t have a monopoly on truth. You are in no position to call “liar” on anyone. You have no authority to pursue others with the objective of getting them sacked. But you are more than capable of putting your own reputation beyond the pale.

And that last is what you are doing with some aplomb right now. Perhaps the time really has come to stop and think. And then do something you are not in the habit of doing: showing some expression of regret - and then apologising. Apologising for all the hurt, offence, upset, nastiness, and, yes, the bullying.

It’s your choice, Louise. I hope that, this time, you choose wisely.