The row seems to have been raging for a couple of days now, although Louise Mensch has now stopped replying to Lord Sugar's 140-character taunts. It's proved difficult to work out who struck the first blow (mainly because Mensch seems to tweet about 50 times a day) but it seems that on November 4, Sugar made a somewhat indelicate remark. 'Publicity crazed serial feminist @LouiseMensch has a Sun column. The paper that exploits women on page 3. Doubt will ever put her on page 3 [sic].'
And they were off.
Mensch quickly responded to the jibe by tweeting: 'Lord Sugar, Labour peer, in attempting to foment some cheap twitterstorm says of me 'Doubt [Sun] will ever put her on page 3'.' Followers have weighed in on both sides, criticising Mensch's support of Mitt Romney, slamming Sugar's misogyny. Most of it's a little too heated to print here. Sugar's argument soon warped into an outright assault on Mensch's moral fibre: 'You are such a hypocrite,' he tweeted. 'You was [sic] giving Murdoch a hard time, now you write for Sun and you wont advise if you get paid or not.'
And so it went on. Mensch accused the Labout peer of sexually demeaning her by doubting her page-three-worthiness, a slightly odd tack for a self-proclaimed feminist: 'I am the lion, see my breasts' and all that, but each to their own. While, ever the gentleman - not, Sugar's response added yet more fuel to the fire: 'Answer the question are you on Murdoch's payroll or not. The sun will quicker [sic] put me on page 3 that me apologise to you [sic].'
No doubt Sugar's 2.4 million followers and Mensch's 75,000 will have been watching with popcorn and a mega-bag of Mistrels. This feud is more exciting than Downton Abbey.
As of this morning, however, Sugar's tirades have slowed to a steady trickle. They are all of the 'you are on Murdoch's payroll' variety and contain the hastag, 'hypocrite'. You can catch up on all the action (the stuff that hasn't been deleted yet) by checking out the handy graphic we've made (below the pesky ad).
