Dear Louise Mensch. It's not one rule for Prince William and another for Piers Morgan

I don't have any particular problem with Louise Mensch, the Conservative MP for Corby.I follow her on twitter where she can be quite informative (even if the ra ra David Cameron gets a bit wearisome at times) and I thought she did a good thing yesterday on the floor of The House raising a point of order about the two reporters who had their passes removed during, ahem, 'piegate'.

So the fact that I'm having a go at her twice in 2 days is unfortunate. But she really got my goat today.

I can forgive her for knocking Piers Morgan in the DCMS Select Committee yesterday. She did get her facts completely wrong, and was very cowardly not repeating what she'd said outside Parliament, if she wasn't going to apologise (see the video attached to this post for the Morgan/Mensch clash on CNN afterwards). Anyway, if the blogs and tweets are to be believed, Piers isn't out of the woods just yet...

But today, Louise tweeted this:



Now, as a member of the DCMS Select Committee, Louise Mendch has real influence and there must be chance she will pursue this thought. Which would frankly be shameful.

Two men have been found guilty of hacking voicemails (belonging to The Royal Family) and been sent to jail. You simply cannot now retrospectively change the law for everyone else who confesses to hacking a certain type of person. And where do you draw the line? Is it Royal Family = jail but Max Clifford = a cosy session spilling the beans in Portcullis House? And what happens if we found, for example, Princess Michael of Kent has been hacked? Does the committee sit in judgement whether someone is Royal enough to merit the full defence of the law?

This idea is both a nonsense and a contradiction of natural justice. The bar for the offence has been set. There's no lowering it now.

4th Aug update

Louise has called for an amnesty on hackers again today. She's still wrong.