I know Louise Mensch MP slightly. I was at university at the same time and we have some mutual friends. At Freshers’ Fayre she tried to sign me up for the “Rock Society” (I manfully resisted, being a Stranglers and Damned fan).
I am certainly not a political supporter of hers, but she is not someone to be under-estimated and she is rightly regarded as being among the more able of the new intake of MPs. And so, against this background, I was rather concerned to see certain tweets last night.
Martin Bright, formerly of this magazine, asked publicly:
Are the media trying to intimidate @LouiseMensch?
Now, why would they do that? Well, as is well known, Mensch asked Rupert Murdoch directly if he had considered resigning at this week’s select committee hearing. But I suspect that Martin did not mean anyone at News International.
There has rightly been attention paid to Mensch’s incorrect claim that Piers Morgan had openly boasted in some book about phone hacking. I understand she will now retract that statement when Parliament reconvenes. All the same, the fact does remain that Piers Morgan was editor of the Daily Mirror during part of the time covered by the ICO report, “What Price Privacy”.
Her substantive point is that hacking and blagging was prevalent throughout the British tabloid press. It is widely believed that the tabloid press is apprehensive that the phone hacking and blagging scandal would spread beyond News International.
Two days after the Select Committee, it was reported that the police had asked for the evidence in the so-called “Motorman” files. If this is correct, then this means newspaper groups other than News International are now in the frame for certain offences.
Mensch tells me that this week she suddenly started to receive a lot of attention from the non-Murdoch tabloid groups. I am told that her office even received a strange call from a newspaper, immediately after the Select Committee hearings ended: the ominous question posed was “Can you confirm you are pregnant?”. There have been a range of other press contacts.
Guido Fawkes has now tweeted there are orders to “get Mensch” from the “very top” and there would be a damaging story about her private life this coming Sunday. I do not know if that is correct; but it certainly is not a pleasant prospect for anyone.
In fact this all becoming very odd, and it is also worrying. To her credit, Mensch has decided not to be intimidated by this sudden tabloid interest in her private life, and has chosen to reveal the apparent intimidation to the New Statesman. If this is an intended intimidation exercise, then it would raise the troubling concern that may be some attempt to pressure or discredit a member of a parliamentary select committee.
It will be interesting to see what Sunday brings, and – indeed – what Mensch and the select committee have to do in response.
David Allen Green is legal correspondent for the New Statesman.
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