Tag: Ed Miliband

Friends of Ralph Miliband’s say the Daily Mail’s version of him is grotesque.

Tariq Ali, a long-time friend of Ralph Miliband, who worked and campaigned alongside the academic from the 1970s until his death, has described the Daily Mail article attacking him as “utterly grotesque”.

Ali said: “It is a wild assault both on Ralph and his son, and the aim, of course, is to try and discredit the family as a whole, which is what one expects from a newspaper like this … completely crazed stuff.

“Ralph’s position was, of course, much, much, better than the Daily Mail, which was a pro-fascist paper until the war broke out – so to get lessons from the Daily Mail on this is quite extraordinary.”

Well the farther Right you go the more everyone to the Left of you looks like the parody Socialist monster (and likewise if you reverse all the terms, no doubt).

Hilary Wainwright, who worked with Miliband in the 1980s, on the Socialist Society, said the attack on him was a case of “playing the man not the ball”.

She added: “They are not dealing with what they are really concerned about – which is the fact that Ed has actually identified some popular policies.

“Ralph did not treat Britain as homogenous. He was extremely committed and engaged with the British labour movement and in a way you could say he spent his life outlining what they were up against … He would, at the same time, be highly critical of the British establishment and the British elite, but that was not a sign of a hatred of Britain but of a hatred of the ruling class and inequality.

“He was a passionate advocate of social justice and in that sense was very much part of the British tradition of dissent from the Levellers … he would situate himself within that dissenting tradition.”

Well if you think Britain (or the US or whatever country is hosting a particular dispute over dissent) is the establishment and the elite, and everyone else is just some pesky outsider rabble there to do the dirty work and shut up about it, then being highly critical of the establishment and the elite is the same as hating the whole country. And we know that is how some members of the elite and the pro-elite party do think. Remember Romney and the 49 percent?

Update: Illustration via Gnu Atheism.

Everyone in the UK is up in arms over the Daily Mail and Ed Miliband. The Mail published a horrible article about Ralph Miliband, father of Ed and David (a former Labour MP). Ed M and many other people said it was horrible, the Mail refused to apologize.

The Daily Mail is under fire after it refused to apologise to Ed Miliband over an article that labelled his late father “the man who hated Britain”.

The paper prompted an angry stream of reaction on Tuesday morning when it stood by the profile published on Saturday, which said the beliefs of Ralph Miliband “should disturb everyone who loves this country”.

The Mail agreed to print a right of reply by the Labour leader, but ran it alongside an abridged version of the original article and a trenchant 1,000-word editorial headlined “An evil legacy and why we won’t apologise”.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg waded into the row on Tuesday, backing Miliband’s  response. Cameron said he had not read the original article but said that “if anyone had a go at my father, I would want to respond vigorously”.

Clegg wrote on Twitter: “I support Ed Miliband defending his dad. Politics should be about playing the ball, not the man, certainly not the man’s family.”

The former Labour MP David Miliband tweeted: “My dad loved Britain. Here’s the truth,” and linked to his brother’s article defending their father, who fled Belgium aged 16 to escape the Nazis.

Ugly, isn’t it.

I very rarely link to anything in the Mail, and when I do I explain that I avoid it and do so only when I can’t find another source. It’s a horrible newspaper.

The Guardian reports on Ed M’s fury at the Mail’s refusal to apologize.

“I’m furious because what is political debate coming to in this country when this happens? That’s why I’ve spoken out,” he said in a television interview with BBC News on Tuesday. “It’s an unusual step to speak out. I don’t do it lightly but I am not willing to see my father’s good name undermined in this way.”

The Daily Mail prompted an angry stream of reaction after it stood by the blistering personal attack with a trenchant 1,000-word editorial headlined “An evil legacy and why we won’t apologise”. The newspaper agreed to print a right of reply by Miliband, but ran it alongside an abridged version of the original article.

“I was appalled when I read the Daily Mail on Saturday and saw them saying that he hated Britain. It’s a lie,” the visibly angry Labour leader told the BBC.

“I’m even more appalled that they repeated that lie today and have gone further and described my father’s legacy as ‘evil’. Evil is a word reserved for particular cases and I was not willing to let that stand.

“It’s perfectly legitimate for the Daily Mail to talk about my father’s politics but when they say that he hated Britain I was not willing to put up with that because my father loved Britain, my father served in the Royal Navy, he was a refugee who came here and found security in this country.

“What I’m interested in is defending my father’s good name. I don’t want the British people to think my father hated Britain – because he loved Britain. When the Daily Mail not only says that but publishes a photo on its website of his gravestone with a pun about it saying he was a grave socialist … I’m furious because what is political debate coming to in this country when this happens? That’s why I’ve spoken out.”

Here we have two things that poison politics and public discourse in general – lies and brutality. People should do better than that.