Louise Mensch: Does this meme stop on Merseyside?

Louise Mensch pulled together a Madchester playlist:

#Madchester playlist Tunes Splits the Atom, There She Goes by the Las, She Bangs the Drums/ Fools Gold by Stone Roses

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) February 13, 2016

To be fair, you have to respect the inclusion of Tunes Splits The Atom. But... The Las?

Some of Louise's twitter followers pointed out that Liverpool and Manchester - while both being part of Dear George Osborne's Northern (John) Powerhouse - are different places.

Mensch, of course, has never found a hole she doesn't want to dig deeper into.

Oh stop twisting my melons man about the Las being scousers. Their sound was pure madchester sorry https://t.co/0it0x2TXWO

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) February 13, 2016

Musically, not really. Unless....

Unless you were from a major label trying to pull together a quick Madchester compilation cash-in album and needed to pad it out, like the Sorted! Madchester and Baggy album, but that even includes Shine On by The House Of Love. Much has been said about Guy Chadwick, but I don't think he's ever been painted as a musical peer of Northside.

Still... it's nice to be reminded of this:

Damon Albarn gets an OBE

Damon Albarn will shortly be heading to the Palace to meet the Queen*, as he's accepted an OBE.

I wonder if he had a well-connected chum who put in a good word for him?

Apparently Alex James hates that photo.

If you're feeling a bit glum that Albarn is these days so firmly in the belly of the establishment, maybe this, at least, will cheer you up. In a rare tweet that isn't misunderstanding that everyone knew Tim Hunt was joking and that that was the problem, Louise Mensch has clambered onto the wrong side of history:

Damon Albarn? I hope they offered Noel one and he turned it down, is all I'm saying. Oasis >> Blur

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) December 31, 2015

Twittergem: Charlotte Church

From Charlotte Church last night, following the news of the death of Nelson Mandela, came a perfect retweet followed by a perfect tweet:

Pygmies of the left so predictably embarrassing yourselves, know this: not a one of your leaders will ever be globally mourned like her.

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) April 8, 2013

How wrong Louise Mensch was.

— Charlotte Church (@charlottechurch) December 5, 2013

Thatcher: Ding Dong results

So, if you were involved with the Ding Dong campaign, you might be thinking you'd succeeded pretty well: the push to get the song charting became a media obsession; front pages in the Mail, Express and Telegraph; BBC management thrown into panic; Charles Moore's confused egg-features caught in puzzled confusion on Question Time. There was even the spectacular contra-campaign which saw Maggie lovers either unwittingly or witlessly buying a punk song that was also an attack on their hero.

As a way of ensuring that the nation was reminded not everyone revered Thatcher, it worked like a charm.

And it even made number two in the charts.

It turns out, though, that the whole thing was a failure.

Luckily, Louise Mensch is on hand to explain why:

It's so good to see that #HopeNotHate triumphed and #DingDidnt flopped at the fence. Much like her opponents in life :) #Thatcher

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) April 14, 2013

Yes, she really did attempt to hijack the name of the anti-racism campaign to hashtag it. Classy.

Did it really matter that the song only got to number two? Probably not, but there's something very Thatcherite, very 'either you're a winner or you're nothing', about the way of viewing the chart position.

But what of the lowly 35 position for I'm In Love With Margaret Thatcher? Was that hashtag hatenothope, then?

Guys: chart is WHOLE WEEK sales not final position. So awesome of #GranthamStyle to make it in in 1 day...

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) April 14, 2013

Louise doesn't understand much about the charts, it turns out. The Notsensibles campaign kicked off on Friday, which is two and a half days of chart-qualifying sales, not one.

And yet, oddly, while suggesting you had to make adjustments for the short time the Love campaign was running...

So there you go. A song they planned to be at No. 1 when Lady #Thatcher died - mobilised for in advance, bought all week - #DingDidnt #fail

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) April 14, 2013

Except Thatcher died on Monday and the Ding Song campaign didn't get underway until Tuesday, so, er, it didn't have a full week's sales, either.

This Tweet is even odder:

And despite weeks of planning I'm still betting ... #DingDidnt - fingers crossed!! #HopeNotHate

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) April 14, 2013

Weeks of planning? How would the Ding Dong campaign have had weeks to plan? Unless Thatcher had phoned up a couple of months back - "I've just seen a fortune teller who's advised me not to bother getting started on the Borgen box set..."

HA! #dingdidnt Planned since 2007 and couldn't manage what Ant and Dec did with no planning in a week. Victory for decency and respect!

— Nik Smith (@niksmith84) April 14, 2013

Except, again, Nik, Ant and Dec's sales ran for a full week. And I think they sold about 10,000 fewer copies.

So, there we have it: Tens of thousands of people buy a record specifically to show a lack of respect for their hero, and yet it's still a victory because Ant And Dec had got to number one with only the top-rated Saturday night TV show.

History is going to judge us all harshly, isn't it?

Thatcher: A rival campaign, as Cooper fluffs it

Whoever would have thought the legacy of Thatcher would turn out not to be a debate over the merits of Keynes against Alan Walters, but a silly spat over a song from The Wizard Of Oz.

It's telling that the big fans of Thatcher have, through their orchestrated attacks on the BBC, managed to turn what might have been a sombre week of reflection into a giggling morass of point and counterpoint over the Munchkin's signature tune.

It then gets funnier, because they cry "but you keep talking about it", thereby churning the story on and on. What would have been a Facebook campaign to control the commanding heights of the lower 20s of the chart has instead become the dominant theme of Thatcher coverage.

Clearly, now, more people are buying the record to make Charles Moore go even more vermillion in the face than to dance on Maggie's grave. Every column inch in the Mail turns what had been a bad taste kick of a corpse into a much more cheerful tweak of the establishment's nose.

But hey: why don't the Thatcher fans try and counter this protest by showing how much she was loved by a portion of the population?

Ooh, Louise Mensch. I understand you've got an idea?

HASHTAG OF THE WEEK for whoever came up with #GranthamStyle - to buy #ImInLoveWithMargaretThatcher here - itunes.apple.com/gb/album/im-in…

— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) April 12, 2013

Uh... I was thinking more of that Thatcher single where she read the Gettysburg Address, or maybe Telstar, which was one of her favourites. But, er, yes, if you want to endorse The NotSensibles, a group who were self-identifying as being not sensible, clearly taking the very piss out of the idea of anyone being in love with Margaret Thatcher, go for it.

I'm expecting Nadine Dorries to be pushing Shipbuilding in the belief that all that talk about reopening the shipyards is an endorsement of Thatcher's industrial policies.

Meanwhile, after days of speculation over whether the BBC will or won't play Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead on Sunday, Radio One's uncomfortable-in-a-suit controller Ben Cooper has managed to concoct the most wonderful fudge by proclaiming that they'll play five seconds and talk about the song.

He was on BBC News a short while ago, trying to suggest that what might appear to be fudge is something else entirely - maybe butterscotch, or cinder toffee.

At one point he said something which will only prolong the agonies - that it was inappropriate to play an attack on a person "who hasn't yet been buried".

Which means that a week on Sunday, once the former Prime Minister is in the ground, he might have to drag through the decision again. Does the change in status from above to below the horizon suddenly make a difference?

There's no indication why five seconds is any worse or better than the full fifty-six seconds. Either the song is offensive - in which case, don't play it; or it isn't, in which case play it in full.

Cooper suggests when Rage Against The Machine was number one, they edited that record and this is the same thing. Except it isn't, is it? There's a difference between removing a "fuck" from a record going out on the radio, and removing fifty one seconds of a track not because of the content of the song but because of the imputed motivations of the people buying it.

Cooper wasn't going to please everyone; instead, he's created an illogical mess.

Gordon in the morning: Cor blimeys in the evening

Gordon is quivering with excitement at the prospect of John Lydon being a guest on tonight's Question Time. (He's on with Louise Mensch, so it's presumably a special narcissists edition.)

BBC chiefs are on tenterhooks after including former Sex Pistols singer John Lydon on tonight’s Question Time panel.

Unbelievably, Smart dredges up the Sex Pistols meet Bill Grundy incident as a dread warning from history:

He was [...] part of the Sex Pistols’ foul-mouthed turn on Bill Grundy’s chat show in 1976 — which wrecked the presenter’s career.

Rather a lame part, though: he said 'shit' very quietly, and then had to have it dragged out of him again.

Got any more, Gordon?

[P]roducers are aware the 56-year-old drew complaints over his swearing on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity in 2004.

Oh, yes. And how did that turn out for ITV? Careers ended in flames? Resignations? Shame? Fines? Remind us, Broadcast magazine:

ITV let off over Lydon

ITV has escaped censure from Ofcom over John Lydon's four-letter outburst on I'm a Celebrity ... Get me out of Here! The regulator received 96 complaints after Lydon called viewers "fucking cunts" live on air. Ofcom accepted that ITV "acknowledged it was highly regrettable and took immediate steps to apologise" as well as introducing a seven-second delay for subsequent live shows.

Ah, yes, the terrible incident where ITV muttered a sorry and Ofcom went "ooh, you guys."

Even allowing for that, though, why would BBC chiefs be on "tenterhooks"? As Gordon is - hopefully - well aware, the programme is prerecorded hours before it broadcast. So even if Lydon does swear (and given he's an old ham more than an old punk, and will only swear when he knows he's been invited on as pantomime dame) they'll simply be able to bleep it out.