Louise Mensch

Louise Mensch (born 28 June 1971), née Louise Daphne Bagshawe, is an English author who writes under her maiden name. She was the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Corby from 2010 to 2012.^[2]

Biography

She was born in London, England, the daughter of Nicholas Wilfrid and Daphne Margaret Bagshawe (née Triggs).^[3] Her father comes from a family of Roman Catholic gentry;^[4] his grandfather was the marine artist Joseph Richard Bagshawe, who was himself grandson of one of the 19th century's most renowned marine artists Clarkson Stanfield,^[5] and a nephew of Edward Gilpin Bagshawe, Roman Catholic Bishop of Nottingham. Her paternal grandmother Mary Frideswide Bagshawe was the daughter of Charles Robertson, a stockbroker and benefactor of St Philip's Priory, Begbroke and one of the co-founders of Westminster Cathedral.^[6] She is the sister of Tilly Bagshawe, a freelance journalist and author, and also has a younger sister Alice and a brother, James.^[7]

Her family moved to the countryside when she was seven. She was educated at Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Tunbridge Wells,^[8] and Woldingham School, a Roman Catholic girls' boarding school in Surrey, and was named "Young Poet of the Year" in 1989 at the age of 18.^[9] After reading English Language and Literature at Christ Church, Oxford,^[10] and following a six month internship at MTV Europe she worked as a press officer with EMI Records (a position from which she was formally dismissed), and then as a marketing official for Sony.^[11]

With parents who were active in the party, Mensch had joined the the Conservatives when she was 14.^[12] Subsequently in 1996, she switched to the Labour Party, saying that she believed Tony Blair to be "socially liberal but an economic Tory" .^[13] By 1997 she had returned to the Conservatives, helped her mother, Daphne, win a seat in East Sussex County Council from the Liberal Democrats.^[12] and campaigned in the 1997, 2001 and 2005 general elections.^[14] In 2001, Mensch co-founded the Oxonian Society with Joseph Pascal and Princess Badiya bint El Hassan of Jordan.^[15]

Bagshawe married Anthony LoCicero, an Anglo-Italian Catholic property speculator. They have three children, but after nine years the marriage ended in divorce.^{[16][17][18][19][20][21]} In June 2011, she married music manager Peter Mensch.^[22] She has criticised media outlets for repeated questions about her plastic surgery.^[23][24][25]

Writing career

Her first novel, Career Girls, was published in 1995 and has been followed by 13 subsequent works in the chick lit genre aimed at young women. She has defended chick lit against allegations, specifically by psychologist Susan Quilliam, that the books cause irrationally high expectations which "ruin readers' lives" by saying that such books merely make readers raise their standards.^[26]

Political career

Mensch was placed on the A-List of Conservative candidates in 2006. This move was criticised by David Burrowes, from the socially conservative Cornerstone Group of Tory MPs, as favouring "minor celebrities", such as Mensch, over local candidates when selecting prospective parliamentary candidates.^[27] In October 2006 she was selected to stand in Corby.^[28] As part of her campaigning for the 2010 election, she appeared on Question Time^[9] and BBC One's The Big Questions.^[29] She believes the fox hunting ban should be repealed on civil liberties grounds, and that its debate and implementation was a waste of Parliamentary time.^[30]

In the 2010 general election Mensch won the seat of Corby with a majority of 1,951, defeating Labour incumbent Phil Hope, and in June 2010 she was elected by other Conservative MPs to serve on the Select Committee for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

Phone hacking scandal

On 19 July 2011, in the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, Mensch took part in the questioning of James and Rupert Murdoch over the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

Political blogger Bagehot in the The Economist named Mensch as the "surprise star" of the hearing saying her "sharp, precise, coolly scornful questions" contrasted with her "waffling, pompous" fellow committee members.^[31] Mensch later faced criticism for incorrectly claiming during the committee that Piers Morgan had written in his autobiography about conducting phone hacking while he was the editor of the Daily Mirror.^[32] When challenged on CNN by Morgan, Mensch cited the protection of parliamentary privilege and refused to withdraw the allegation; however, she also refused to openly repeat it. She later apologised to Morgan, claiming that she had misread a newspaper report about the book.^[33]

Three days later Mensch received an email alleging that she had taken a controlled substance with Nigel Kennedy at Ronnie Scott's club in Birmingham in the 1990s while working as a press officer for EMI Records.^[34] Mensch publicly released the email and admitted the allegations were "highly probable", but said she would not be deterred from asking further questions about phone hacking. She subsequently admitted using class A drugs in The Sunday Times.^{[11][19][35][36]}

The Culture, Media and Sport select committee finalised its report in April 2012. Mensch disagreed publicly with Tom Watson and Paul Farrelly, two Labour members of the committee, over whether the conclusion that Rupert Murdoch was unfit to run an international company, had been discussed before Watson tabled a Commons amendment on 30 April. Mensch and the other three Conservative members of the committee had opposed it, and could not support the report with the MP herself saying the report had become "partisan" as a result of the statement's inclusion.^[37][38] Mensch insisted on Newsnight on 2 May that it had not been discussed and was not part of its remit.^[39][40] Watson later accused Mensch of tabling pro-Murdoch amendments which would have "exonerated" James Murdoch in the report and, in Twitter exchanges with her, alleged private committee conversations had been leaked to News Corp.^[41][42]

Control of social networking

Following the 2011 England riots Mensch called for social media services Twitter and Facebook to be shut down or to "take an hour off" during disturbances to stop the spread of false rumours wasting police resources.^[43] She compared the action with brief interruptions to road and rail networks during emergencies.^[43] However, other Twitter users compared such action to the online censorship of regimes such as Iran and China, whilst Sussex police said they had used Twitter to stop rumours.^[43]

In June 2012, a man was given a 26-week prison sentence suspended for two years for sending Mensch an offensive and threatening email including threats against her children.^[44] Following his conviction, Mensch called for networking sites to identify anonymous bullies saying it was impossible for the victim to ascertain the seriousness of the threat posed, while the bullies felt they could do as they pleased without fear of retribution.^[45]

Resignation

On 6 August 2012, Mensch announced her decision to resign as the MP for Corby in order to spend more time with her family in New York City.^[2] Mensch had appeared likely to be promoted in the expected September government reshuffle.^[46] She told her local newspaper that she had intended to stand down at the next election, but brought the date forward as she was concerned her children would be too settled in Britain by then.^[46] She was appointed to the nominal position of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead on 29 August 2012, thus vacating her seat. The subsequent by-election was won by Andy Sawford for the Labour party.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Norman Tebbit criticised Conservative Central Office for removing the right of constituencies to choose local candidates, a move which he says has both caused the collapse of grassroot party membership and weakened the bond between members and constituents. He said it appeared that Mensch had "put her newly acquired husband above the constituents that her website still says she was honoured to have been elected to represent" two years ago and that her attitude to her obligations appeared casual.^[47]

Following her resignation, she warned women against regular consumption of alcohol which she associated with her diagnosis of ADD, a type of attention deficit disorder.^[48]

menshn.com and unfashionistas.com

In June 2012, Mensch joined forces with former Labour digital adviser Luke Bozier to set up a social networking website – a topic-based rival to Twitter focusing on politics.^[49][50] The site, named Menshn – a reference to "mention", – allows users to select their topic of interest. Mensch hopes to raise venture capital finance.^[51] The site was slated by IT industry experts for its lack of security.^[52][53] Menshn closed in February 2013.^[54]

After the closure of menshn, Mensch announced she was setting up a style and fashion blog called unfashionista. The website, unfashionistas.com, was covered widely in the British press. The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and others all ran articles – giving it mixed reviews - and Mumsnet made her a featured blogger on their bloggers' network.

Sun Columnist

After quitting Parliament, Mensch wrote articles for a number of newspapers, including the Murdoch-owned The Times and The Sun. In January 2013 she became a columnist for the The Sun on Sunday.

Other Media

Mensch made regular appearances in the media after the death of Margaret Thatcher, calling those who celebrated her death a "vocal minority", "idiots", and "pygmies", as well as swearing during an interview on This Morning. She was criticised for her conduct by some in the British press.^[55][56][57]

Publications (as Louise Bagshawe)

Single novels

Anthology

• Five Romantic Reads (2005) (with Donna Hay, Laura Wolf, Jane Elizabeth Varley and Stella Chaplin)

References

External links

• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Current session contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Electoral history and profile at The Guardian
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Profile at Westminster Parliamentary Record
• Profile at BBC News Democracy Live
• Articles authored at Journalisted
• Louise Mensch at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about Louise Mensch in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Louise Mensch on Twitter
• Articles authored as Louise Bagshawe at Journalisted
• Menshn.com
• Louise Bagshawe Books