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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 the UK Parliament (MP) for Corby from 2010 to 2012. She is also a co-founder of the Hudson Union Society.

Biography

She was born in London, England, the daughter of Nicholas Wilfrid and Daphne Margaret Bagshawe (née Triggs). Her father comes from a family of Roman Catholic gentry; 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, 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. She is the sister of Tilly Bagshawe, a freelance journalist and author, and also has a younger sister Alice and a brother, James.

Her family moved to the countryside when she was seven. She was educated at Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Tunbridge Wells, 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. After reading English Language and Literature at Christ Church, Oxford, 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.

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

Bagshawe married Anthony LoCicero, an Anglo-Italian Catholic property speculator. They have three children, but after nine years the marriage ended in divorce. In June 2011, she married music manager Peter Mensch She has criticised media outlets for repeated questions about her plastic surgery.

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.

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. In October 2006 she was selected to stand in Corby. As part of her campaigning for the 2010 election, she appeared on Question Time and BBC One's The Big Questions. 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.

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 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. 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. 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.

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. 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.

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. Mensch insisted on Newsnight on 2 May that it had not been discussed and was not part of its remit. 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.

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. She compared the action with brief interruptions to road and rail networks during emergencies. 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.

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. 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.

Cyberbullying

In May 2012, Mensch used her Twitter account to condemn abusive and threatening tweets that she had received, describing them as “misogyny and bullying”. The tweets were subsequently reported in the mainstream press, and she received support for drawing attention to the issue from many high profile figures, including Jeremy Vine and Isabel Hardman. In March 2014, Mensch was herself accused of cyberbullying after she sent a series of tweets to a journalist, which included personal remarks about his appearance.

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. Mensch had appeared likely to be promoted in the expected September government reshuffle. 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. 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.

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.

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. The site, named Menshn – a reference to "mention", – allows users to select their topic of interest. Mensch hopes to raise venture capital finance. The site was slated by IT industry experts for its lack of security. Menshn closed in February 2013.

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 Sun on Sunday.

Xenophobic Remarks Controversy

In June 2014, the respected Greek newspaper Kathimerini reported Mensch's remarks on her Twitter profile about Greeks: "F*** you, Greece. Nasty things happening to nasty people." The remarks were further reported in the Greek press and in the media.

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.

Publications (as Louise Bagshawe)

Single novels

Anthology

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

References

1. Gimson, Andrew (12 August 2012). "Louise Mensch: writing herself out of the Tory story". The Guardian. London, England.
2. ^ "Louise Mensch to quit as an MP, triggering Corby by-election". BBC News. 6 August 2012.
3. "Be Inspired, Change Our World™. HUDSON UNION SOCIETY®". Hudsonunionsociety.com. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
4. "Marriages". The Times. 23 September 1969. p. 12.
5. "The Landed Gentry of Britain". Wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com.
6. David Cordingly (1996), Jane Turner (ed.), "Stanfield, Clarkson", Grove Dictionary of Art, Macmillan Publishers
7. The Catholic Who's Who and Yearbook, vol. 33, 1940, p. 432
8. Scott, Caroline (6 March 2005). "Relative Values: Tilly and Louise Bagshawe". The Sunday Times. London, England.
9. Who's Who 2011, A & C Black, 2011
10. ^ "Question Time:This week's panel". BBC News. 10 January 2008.
11. "Louise Mensch (Ex-MP)". parliamentaryrecord.com.
12. ^ King, Victoria (29 July 2011). "Tory MP Louise Mensch 'probably took drugs in club'". BBC News.
13. ^ Bernstein, Jon (4 October 2011). "The Politics Interview – Louise Mensch". New Statesman.
14. "'He sees women as equals'". The Guardian. London, England. 19 April 2006.
15. "Louise Mensch – Profile". Conservatives.com.
16. "Today's Leaders, Tomorrow's Ideas. HUDSON UNION SOCIETY™". Hudson Union Society.
17. Walker, Tim (27 May 2007). "Chick lit Tory candidate Louise Bagshawe splits from husband". The Daily Telegraph. London, England.
18. Walker, Tim (3 June 2011). "Tory MP Louise Bagshawe secretly marries Metallica manager Peter Mensch". The Daily Telegraph. London, England.
19. Churcher, Sharon; Owen, Glen (12 June 2011). "How MP Louise Bagshawe wrote a novel about a rock mogul who dumps his wife for haughty English Rose, then married a rock mogul who... you know the rest". Daily Mail. London, England.
20. ^ d'Ancona, Matthew (2 February 2012). "Iron maiden". GQ. London, England.
21. Singh, Anita (28 October 2012). "Louise Mensch, her hasty husband and two stories of why she threw in the towel". The Daily Telegraph. London, England.
22. Dunbar, Polly; Pringle, Gill (14 November 2012). "Agony for New York wife as British lawmaker who had 20-year affair with and then married her rock-and-roll husband quits UK parliament and pitches up in Manhattan". Daily Mail. London, England.
23. Walker, Tim (3 June 2011). "Tory MP Louise Bagshawe secretly marries Metallica manager Peter Mensch". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2 June 2011.
24. "Newsnight – Coogan and Mensch clash over press regulation". BBC News. 13 October 2011.
25. Aitkenhead, Decca (30 September 2011). "Louise Mensch: 'We're not all ogres'". The Guardian. London, England.
26. "Has Louise Mensch had a facelift? Tory MP 'Cameron cutie' refuses to answer". Daily Mail. London, England. 2 October 2011.
27. Mensch, Louise (8 July 2011). "Chick-lit doesn't damage its readers, it just makes them raise their standards". The Daily Telegraph. London, England.
28. "'Beautiful' Tory list under fire". BBC News. 19 April 2006.
29. "'Chick-lit' author to stand at next general election". Northampton Chronicle & Echo. 13 October 2006.
30. "BBC One Programmes – The Big Questions, Series 2, Episode 21". BBC News. 14 June 2009.
31. "Louise Mensch – Interview". ConservativeHome. 14 June 2006.
32. "Rupert and James Murdoch before Parliament". The Economist Blog. 19 July 2011.
33. Swaine, Jon (20 July 2011). "Phone hacking: Piers Morgan in on-air hacking row with Louise Mensch". The Daily Telegraph. London, England.
34. "MP Mensch apologises to Piers Morgan for hacking slur". BBC News. 29 July 2011.
35. Sanchez, Raf (29 July 2011). "Louise Mensch releases email allegations made by journalist". The Daily Telegraph. London, England.
36. "Louise Mensch comes clean on Morgan, drugs and bad dancing". 4 News. 29 July 2011.
37. Buckland, Lucy (7 November 2011). "Class A drugs caused me long-term mental damage: Tory MP Louise Mensch's candid confession". Mail Online.
38. "Phone-hacking report 'partisan' - Tory MP Louise Mensch". BBC News. 1 May 2012.
39. Deans, Jason; Plunkett, John (1 May 2012). "Phone hacking: select committee report unveiled". The Guardian Blog. London, England.
40. "Was Rupert Murdoch's 'fitness' to run News Corp discussed?". BBC News. 2 May 2012.
41. Wintour, Patrick; Sabbagh, Dan; Halliday, Josh (2 May 2012). "Phone-hacking: MPs clash over when Murdoch criticisms were discussed". The Guardian. London, England.
42. O'Carroll, Lisa (3 May 2012). "Tom Watson accuses Louise Mensch of tabling pro-Murdoch amendments". The Guardian. London, England.
43. O'Carroll, Lisa (3 May 2012). "News Corp was given private committee details, suggests Tom Watson". The Guardian. London, England.
44. ^ Beckford, Martin (12 August 2011). "Louise Mensch MP calls for Twitter and Facebook blackout during riots". The Daily Telegraph. London, England.
45. "Louise Mensch internet troll banned from contacting General Petraeus and Lord Sugar". The Daily Telegraph. London, England. 11 June 2012.
46. "Louise Mensch: social networks must identify internet bullies who cower behind anonymity". The Daily Telegraph. London, England. 13 June 2012.
47. "Louise Mensch MP exposes shameful bullying of women on Twitter after personal attacks". The Daily Telegraph. London, England. 2 May 2012.
48. It happened to me: ex-MP Louise Mensch cyberbullied me! , Us vs Th3m, 28 March 2014
49. ^ Prince, Rosa (6 August 2012). "Louise Mensch MP quits to care for young family". The Daily Telegraph. London, England.
50. Tebbit, Norman (7 August 2012). "The case of Louise Mensch is a good example of why the Tory grassroots have lost confidence in the national Party". The Daily Telegraph Blog. London, England.
51. Claire Carter (13 May 2013). "Louise Mensch reveals her battle with attention deficit disorder". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 12 January 2014.
52. Kameir, Rawiya (20 June 2012). "Tory MP Louise Mensch launches social network". IT Pro Portal.
53. John, Rapid (21 June 2012). "MP Louise Mensch has launched a microblogging site". rapidberry.net.
54. "Tory MP Louise Mensch launches rival to Twitter". BBC News. 20 June 2012.
55. Leyden, John (25 June 2012). "Mensch pal Bozier defends Menshn security, dubs critics 'snippy geeks'". The Register.
56. Davenport, Tom (25 June 2012). "New social network Menshn launches in UK with security holes". CNET.
57. Arthur, Charles (6 February 2013). "Menshn closes as founders fall out". The Guardian. London, England.
58. "Ex-British MP Mensch labels Greece 'racist' over ADL poll results". Kathimerini. 11 June 2014.
59. Silcocks, James (9 April 2013). "Margaret Thatcher Dies: The Reaction to the Reaction". The Huffington Post.
60. Jones, Oliver (13 April 2013). "Opinion: Thatcher - respect her funeral and respect our right to protest". TNT.
61. "Margaret Thatcher: David Mellor and Ken Livingstone discuss the late PM". stv.tv. 9 April 2013.

External links

• Profile at Parliament of the United Kingdom
• Contributions in Parliament at Hansard
• Voting record at Public Whip
• Record in Parliament at TheyWorkForYou
• Louise Mensch at IMDb
• Template:Worldcat id
• Louise Mensch on Twitter
• Articles authored as Louise Bagshawe at Journalisted
• Menshn.com
• Louise Bagshawe Books

Template:Persondata

• Use dmy dates from August 2013
• 1971 births
• Living people
• People educated at Beechwood Sacred Heart School
• People educated at Woldingham School
• Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
• British Roman Catholics
• British novelists
• Writers from London
• British romantic fiction writers
• Chick lit writers
• Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
• Conservative Party (UK) MPs
• UK MPs 2010–
• English expatriates in the United States
• People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
• Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies