Unsuprisingly, I have never cared for the Daily Mail. It is not just about its politics, it's about the whole package, the whole ethos it seems to embody. If the Telegraph is the house magazine of the Tory party, the Mail must hold the same position for UKIP supporters. It epitomises Little England values, pining constantly for a world it believes is slipping away although, in fact, it probably never existed. The Mail has probably been complaining about the loss of 'traditional British values' since the Normans invaded - it certainly feels that way. More recently, it has become like every other tabloid: completely obsessed with 'celebrity', especially in its online incarnation. The infamous "Sidebar of Shame" is filled with pictures of actresses from US soaps displaying their "beach-toned" bodies in bikinis, lovingly relayed to middle-aged middle class voyeurs - sorry, 'readers' - via multiple luridly papped photos. The Mail just never appealed to me. Its rubbishing of any politician anywhere to the left of Genghis Khan was to be expected and pretty much par for the course.
However, on Saturday, the Mail ran a piece on the late Ralph Miliband, the father of the Labour party's David and Ed. Under a lurid headline (The man who hated Britain...So what did Miliband Snr really believe in? The answer should disturb everyone who loves this country) it went on to denigrate the service of a man who fought for this country in WWII on the basis of a quote made ina diary written when he was 17 years old. The quote read:
'The Englishman is a rabid nationalist. They are perhaps the most nationalist people in the world . . . you sometimes want them almost to lose (the war) to show them how things are. They have the greatest contempt for the Continent . . . To lose their empire would be the worst possible humiliation.'
That this is the 'evidence' that Ralph Miliband 'hated ' Britain is spectcularly piss-poor. What makes it better though is to replce the word "Englishman" with "Daily Mail" - that is almost a perfect fit! The little Englanders who still belive that we have some Imperial 'right' in the world and haven't noticed that we have, indeed, lost the empire. That is not 'hating Britain' - that is telling some difficult truths to people who refuse to notice that the world is changing. And what does attacking the (dead) father of the Labour leader prove? a) Political ideas are genetically inherited? b) Jewish contributions to the war effort count less than others? or c) the Mail is worried that Labour and Ed Miliband are pulling ahead in the polls? Hmmm - I'll choose 'c".
The Mail's conviction that Miliband has embraced his father's politics wholeheartedly also needs to be challenged. Ralph Miliband was an awowed Marxist. Whatever Ed may or may not be, he is NOT a Marxist. A standard tactic of the right is to refer to anyone with a view to the left of theirs as a 'Marxist'. Wrong, wrong, wrong! And insulting to boot! I'm absolutely certain that Ed learned much from his dad, but he is certainly not a radical Marxist and anyone who thinks he is must surely write for the Mail. What Ed belives is what Ed believes and citing the father as a guide to that is, at best, a pretty hazy connection. After all, absolutely no-one has pointed out that the great-grandfather of the current owner of the Mail thought Hitler was doing great things in Europe and loved the idea of the Blackshirts in Britain! So, it seems that if you are Marxist, you are cursed and your progeny are to be derided, but if you are Rothermere, your buddies in the Establishment turn a blind eye to the views you espoused before the war and you get to keep your newspaper which you hand on to your progengy to carry on the dissemination of poisonous bile.
In the course of a few days, the actions of the Mail and their apologists (yes, YOU, the guy on Newsnight tonight) have turned me from a "Oh, the Mail - so what?" kinda guy to a "This shite should be swept from the face of the Earth" kinda guy. Journalistically worthless, whay does any thinking person buy it? One more thing: I hate passionately the stance that the Mail takes on "our" values. It constantly refers to "our" values as if they speak with the voice of Britain. Let me tell you, Daily Mail, I love my country, but I hate you with every fibre of my being. You represent nothing that is good about Britain. In fact, you are contributing to the meanness and bigotry that is dragging this nation down. If it wasn't so tragic, it would almost be funny...
I wanted to dissect more, to rail further against the blithe assassination of a man's character that this filthy rag thinks it can get away with, but it is late and I'm tired. In the meantime, this is interesting (or is it terrifying?) food for thought http://t.co/BTm5lNc4oc. The Mail is firing the first salvos in a war to destroy the Labour party by any means possible and that means it is scared. Take heart!
Edit: I forgot to mention one further piece of crap in this whole 'story'. Ed Miliband was so upset by the denigration of his late father that he asked for a right of reply in the Mail. They duly allowed him the space to give us his version of his father. This prompted the Mail to reprint the offending article and to run a piece that staunchly defended character assassination whilst further rubbishing Ed. Also it veered off at a tangent to note that Ed supports statutory press regulation, another reason we should all hate him as it means the end of free speech. Well, if free speech is to be squandered on the politically-motivated smearing of a dead man and the snide and cynical hijacking of the defence of that man's reputation by his son, then the Mail is doing a brilliant job of pissing it away and further cheapening the British 'values' it bangs on and on about.
