This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
And Finally Beef Of The Week
CMU Beef Of The Week #74: Louise Mensch v David Jones Investigative Journalists
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 5 August 2011
So, this week’s beef has a slightly tenuous music link, and it happened last week. But it’s by far the finest beef we’ve seen in the last seven days.
Conservative MP Louise Mensch was first in the headlines last month, when she used the Culture Select Committee’s recent grilling of those involved in the News International phone hacking scandal to implicate Piers Morgan as being involved in Planet Tabloid’s dodgy dealings. As it turned out, her allegation that the one-time Mirror editor and now CNN anchor had basically admitted to using phone hacking was based on a misunderstanding of Morgan’s autobiography which she hadn’t actually read herself (well, who in their right mind would?).
She was forced to apologise for making the allegations (because she made them in the confines of parliament, Morgan couldn’t sue for libel), though not before new rumours about the one time Mirror guy’s tabloid past began circulating on both sides of the Atlantic, which is a problem for CNN as it has been portraying its newish recruit to Americans as a serious news man.
But following that brush with the press, Mensch’s latest brush with the press relates to a, er, brush with the press. Late last month, the politician received a letter from an investigative journalist called David Jones (the exact identity of whom remains a bit of a mystery, it’s not the Daily Mail journalist of that name) asking her to comment on various allegations relating to her time as an EMI executive. In particular, that she once took drugs and danced the night away (in full view of some journalists) at a club with violin guy Nigel Kennedy, that she was fired from the major for writing one of her novels on their time, and that she named a character in her first novel after her former EMI boss Roger Lewis.
Killing any potential tabloid scandal relating to her record industry past, Mensch issued a response via her own website. On the night of drug taking and dancing with Kennedy, she said: “Although I do not remember the specific incident, this sounds highly probable. I thoroughly enjoyed working with Nigel Kennedy, whom I remember with affection. Additionally, since I was in my 20s, I’m sure it was not the only incident of the kind; we all do idiotic things when young. I am not a very good dancer and must apologise to any and all journalists who were forced to watch me dance that night at Ronnie Scott’s”.
On the other allegations against her, she said that while she did use EMI computers to write her first novel, she wrote it out of office hours, and that it wasn’t the reason she was dismissed from the music firm. That was because of slacking off early, taking a few sickies and “inappropriate dress”, she confessed. And while she probably did use Roger’s name for a character in her debut novel, he’s never said he had any problem with that fact.
So, well done to Mensch and her PR Tom Steiner for killing those tabloid stories before they could even be published, and very possibly preventing any other tales of the MP’s record industry days becoming tabloid fodder. With even left-leaning bloggers and Tweeters commending the Tory for using admirable honesty to counter moves by tabloid journalists to tarnish the high profile tabloid critic, the mysterious David Jones justified his letter to New Statesman assistant editor Helen Lewis-Hasteley by claiming that Mensch is pro the criminalisation of drugs, and is therefore a hypocrite given her confessions about her own casual drug taking. Though Mensch subsequently denied having expressed any opinions on drug laws in parliament.
Either way, the musician at the heart of the allegations against the MP had a warning for any newspaper types looking to take her on this weekend. Kennedy told reporters: “I am a socialist myself but do remember having some great times with my beautiful and very clever right-wing friend when she was at EMI. Louise is pretty scary and I would warn anyone that it’s not a good idea to mess with her”.
So, that’s you told.
