The Mail versus Miliband

“The man who hates Britain” was the headline the Daily Mail used to describe Labour leader Ed Miliband’s father. By extension, we are supposed to infer, the shadow minister hates Britain too.

What evidence did the Mail use to spearhead this damaging sweeping statement? Ralph Miliband, a 17 year old Jew fleeing the Holocaust, recorded in a private journal that he sometimes wished Britain would lose the war due to its overwhelming nationalism. He probably never thought anybody would see it. How many of us have written ridiculous, cringe worthy things in a diary in our teens? And yet this is the central argument for the Mail’s attack on the man. Ralph went on to serve in the British Navy, risking his life for a country he allegedly hated, when he didn’t have to.

Of course the diary of a 17 year old who just escaped the holocaust is credible evidence for judgement of his entire life’s beliefs. But the Mail does not stop there! It furthers this ‘evidence’ with the fact that Ralph spoke out against the Falklands war. Well there it is! Anyone who disagrees with a war is, by default, a Britain-hater. So anyone who disagrees with the Iraq war is unpatriotic and worthy of a post-mortem public shaming I suppose.

The pompous refusal to apologise for this unfounded slander does not come as a surprise. It’s not news that the Daily Mail is ridiculous. Nor is this the first time the newspaper has unleashed unsubstantiated attacks on public figures. Stephen Fry recently received the brunt of the Mail’s hatred when he deigned to speak against Vladimir Putin’s anti-gay laws by calling to cancel the winter Olympics in Russia. Stepping around any blatant homophobia, the Mail proceeded to unleash a tirade of nonsensical critiques of his bullying nature and the fact he should have called for a boycott of all Russian music instead, making what is possibly one of the most absurd arguments in human publication.  (Article here)

Take a glance at history and it doesn’t get better. The 1960s  and 70s Mail was a minefield of anti-immigration racism (Enoch Powell has the right idea!), misogyny (blocking women’s pay rises) and general anti-progress propaganda. So not much has changed then. The newspaper’s founder, Viscount Rothermere, was a well known Nazi-sympathiser, which for a start makes its allegations against Miliband’s dad hypocritical.

Nowadays - concerningly the most popular online British news publication - the Mail Online is peppered with sensationalist nonsense. A glance at the ‘headlines’ on Sunday 6 October and all they could muster was a story about drunken women taking over an “ENTIRE” – yes, shouty capitals - train carriage. How unladylike! I can’t imagine that has ever occurred before, this is newsworthy stuff! Groups of male drunkards would never behave in such a way, particularly not in the football season. Perhaps the most offensive aspect of the Mail Online is its ‘Femail’ section. Ladies, skip the News, Science and other important, manly issues and let your little minds think on fashion, beauty, and celebrity instead. Words fail.

Mehdi Hasan, political editor for the Huffington Post, unleashed a rant on a recent Question Time which has been viewed on YouTube almost half a million times. He said “who hates Britain more? It isn’t a dead Jewish refugee from Belgium who served in the Royal Navy, it’s the immigrant-bashing, woman-hating, Muslim-smearing, NHS-undermining, gay baiting Daily Mail”. I couldn’t put it better myself.