Don’t Menshn Andrew Neil

As if to underscore in spades my view on (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch and her tendency to take nuggets of valuable information, but very soon afterwards veer wildly away from the real world and into the realms of the totally gaga, she appeared before the inquisition of host Andrew Neil on today’s edition of the Sunday Politics and showed a rather wider audience than Zelo Street that she is not dealing from a full deck.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

Her problem was twofold: not merely believing her own propaganda, but that her opening mastery of the exchanges - correcting Brillo on the nature of the FISA warrant she has discussed at some length, and backing it up with noting that both the BBC and Guardian had effectively validated that part of her claim - led her in to a false sense of security. One should never take that for granted when Neil is asking the questions.

And it was not long before the wheels came off the Mensch wagon in no style at all. What evidence, she was asked, did she have for the suggestion that Combover Crybaby Donald Trump should be impeached? There was, she asserted, a “whole mound of evidence”, and pointed to Trump’s off-the-cuff suggestion that the Russians “release all of Hillary Clinton’s emails”. But, Neil countered, this was not evidence.

This, though, was merely a sighting shot: Brillo then switched to Ms Mensch’s claim that Andrew Breitbart was murdered on the orders of Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin (covered by Zelo Street HERE) and that Breitbart’s successor Steve Bannon was somehow connected to bomb threats against Jewish community centres. Ah, Ms Mensch countered, but she only believed that, and had not reported it. It was only on Twitter.

Not sure he'll want to chew on that for long

Try telling Sally Bercow and Katie Hopkins that. “You may believe that there are fairies at the bottom of your garden - that doesn’t make it true” pointed out an increasingly exasperated Neil. Perhaps, he mused, “we could get the rules right”, and suggested Ms Mensch was rather new to this journalism lark (he was being far too kind: Ms Mensch would have difficulty distinguishing journalism from a hole in the ground).

At this point, Ms Mensch made a fatal mistake. She patronised Neil and accused him of jealousy. She then doubled down on the patronising line. This did not server her well, as Neil then switched to her self-description as a “temporary superpower”. Had she become delusional (don’t ask)? As ever, Ms Mensch had a reasoned explanation, or one that made sense to her, but by the end her credibility was well and truly shot.

Her claims that “reporting” and “belief” were different, and rambling introduction of “faith” had been enough to leave Neil’s resident panel in stitches, and that was not merely the likes of Julia Hartley Dooda (and her attention seeking trousers) but also Steve Richards, who might have thought he’d seen it all, before ending the experience gobsmacked.

Louise Mensch somehow doesn’t understand that all of your reportage can be thrown back at you in interviews - and quite legitimately. She can have no complaints.