The Curious Case of Louise Mensch

Enter Louise Mensch. Born into the decaying city of London, she started out simple enough. She was a writer of low-grade 'chic lit', a genre of fiction designed to appeal to suburban Western women who were incapable of reading actual literature. While her upbringing had been tinged with the politics of the British Conservative Party, the general sea-change in political outlooks in the 1990s caused her to become enamored with Tony Blair's project of New Labour, which was a vision of both economic and social liberalism. As the Labour Party turned its back on overt socialism, the Conservative Party would eventually turn its back on social conservatism, rendering the parties largely identical from an ideological point of view, and so Mensch returned to the Conservatives and became overtly active on the political scene. In 2010 she managed to snag herself a parliamentary seat representing the constituency of Corby, during the post-Blairite massacring of the Labour Party at the polls.

Her political career was entirely undistinguished. She was simply another feminist back-bencher occasionally inserting herself into various issues with minimal interest generated in her lackluster charisma. Her highlight would have been her prosecutorial role during the phone-hacking scandal, when British tabloid newspapers were scolded by the government for spying on celebrities, something the government itself does to ordinary citizens on a daily basis. I say this wouldhave been her highlight, because during the trial it came to light that she had in fact been a drugged-up libertine during her brief time as a press officer for EMI Records. Mensch initially tried to slither around these accusations, but eventually had to admit to abusing hard substances.

She resigned ignobly in 2012, moving to the United States where she proceeded to develop a reputation for harassing teenagers online, such as the  young girl who founded a fanclub for failed Labour politician Ed Miliband. Why exactly Mensch felt the need to abuse her and others online remains unknown.

It was with the Trump phenomenon through 2015/2016 that Mensch began to emerge once again, except this time in a much more inflated role, as a mouth-piece for Trump's critics at first, but later becoming a force of her own. Why exactly a former parliamentarian from the UK would become so deeply involved in commentary on the US election, or indeed why news outlets tapped such a random individual to provide that commentary, is unclear. Mensch had entered the world of journalism, writing for The Sun, and The Times, as well as founding her own website, Heat Street, but she was in no way noteworthy as a journalist. For reference, I myself had never heard of her before 2016, and I have been politically involved for several years now. But her obscurity changed with Trump. It's perfectly possible that Mensch's pattern of behavior was itself, and remains, a publicity stunt. She has carved out a niche of crazytown all her own, originating the most outlandish and wacky claims about Trump and his supposed 'ties' with Russia and Vladimir Putin.

Before you read the following, I'd like to point out that this woman is invited onto cable news regularly to opine about Russia and Trump. Her list of bizarre claims include:

• That Theodor Herzl (founder of the Zionist movement) was an anti-semite because he used the word 'Zionist'.
• That the United States should engage in "precision bombing raids" against Russia, hack its banks, and begin a "massive cyber war".
• That popular Infowars journalist Paul Joseph Watson was part of a Russian botnet (presumably not being a real person despite the fact he appears on video regularly).
• That followers of Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn were anti-semites, based on her own Twitter searches for 'Jeremy Corbyn' and 'anti-semite' being listed as recommended searches... because she had previously searched them.
• That Russia somehow murdered Andrew Breitbart (founder of Breitbart News) who died from a heart attack in 2012.
• That serial pervert and former US Congressman Anthony Weiner was actually caught in a Russian sting operation when he was busted for sexting underage girls. Apparently the girls in question did not exist and were fabricated by Russia.
• That she was being hacked by Russia because she once picked up a Wi-Fi hotspot with a vaguely Russian-sounding name.
• That the terrorist attack which just recently rocked London had nothing to do with Islam. It was also a Russian plot.
• That having a diagnosed mental disorder (ADHD) somehow gave her "superpowers" to see patterns where others did not.

From what anybody can tell, Mensch's entire life now revolves around the supposed Russian conspiracy that she has been embroiled in. Needless to say, she has received ridicule in some press outlets. The New York Times reported that her claims were "baseless", and the Daily Mail said of Mensch's story about Anthony Weiner: "We can't speak for everything Mrs Mensch has reported but so far as her piece about the Weiner story goes, it is an error-ridden farrago of fantasy and nonsense. Fake news hardly begins to cover it."

How exactly she stays afloat after launching both a failed fashion blog and a failed social media application remains a mystery, though it could be theorized her husband is funding her time spent in front of the computer. Peter Mensch is a successful band manager, notable for managing now defunct UK act Lostprophets, whose lead singer was convicted in 2013 for gruesome child rape. Presumably this means he has money to burn propping up his wife's Twitter hobby, and no doubt tinfoil to block Kremlin mind control rays.

Mensch is such an oddball, such a narcissistic loose-cannon, that one cannot help but wonder if she herself works for Vladimir Putin. What better way to brush off your critics than to make them look utterly ridiculous? Alas, it is nothing quite so clever. The fact is that Mensch is genuinely unhinged. In her own words, her drug abuse during the 90s "messed with my brain and had long-term mental health effects." These are all too obvious. If sane people are wondering why exactly she gets the limelight she does, it is because Mensch is an entertaining curiosity, like a sideshow attraction, the West's 'bearded lady'. It is because of this, and their own investment in conspiracies, that networks will overlook various ethical questions surrounding Mensch (and there are many more than are listed here).

We should not be annoyed by the amount of airtime being given to this supposed journalist. Russia-Insider should not be so incensed by her appearance, and should in fact relish every moment she is brought to public attention. Her complete lack of credibility itself discredits the claims she makes from here on out. If you want to cast the president of Russia as the villain from a Saturday morning cartoon, it maybe isn't the best idea to wheel out the woman in a straight-jacket to tell the story, and there is no doubt in my mind that Mensch would benefit from being institutionalized. However, we would benefit from her being in the public square, exposing these lies for the neurotic fantasies that they are. Such is the irony of Louise Mensch. She's working for Russia, and she doesn't even know it.