Miliband's father

[buctootim]

Whatever you think of Miliband, Labour or the Daily Mail - criticising a dead man to get at his son seems to be a new low in journalism. The Mail's piece is based on a diary Miliband's father wrote when was 17 having just fled the Nazis and was in a strange country.

 

Papers have always been sensationalist in order to attract attention and readers, but there was always a line because if too many people were offended they stopped buying the paper and advertising revenues were hit. Now as mainly web based publications, even people visiting to say how disgusting the article is count as hits, traffic goes up and advertisers pay more. Controversy is king. Its hard to see a future for objective reporting anywhere other than as niche publications on subscription.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435751/Red-Eds-pledge-bring-socialism-homage-Marxist-father-Ralph-Miliband-says-GEOFFREY-LEVY.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2439593/Why-father-loved-Britain-Ed-Miliband.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24343074

Edited 1 October, 2013 by buctootim

[KelvinsRightGlove]

Mail online are bastards for this.

 

Basically, it is no coincidence it is one of the most read news sites on the web, and also one of the highest earners from ad revenue.

 

They post deliberately salacious stories, to whip up a frenzy, get people talking about the article, click on and read it, comment etc, get more people coming back and so on.

 

With each hit they get more money from their advertisers, if they are really clever they can target the ads to specific users (if they have signed up and given over certain details) at a higher rate.

 

I agree it's nasty, but this is effectively where the DM makes money now, as we all know t'interwebs is killing print.

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

Totally agree with the OP. Let's not forget that Miliband Senior saw active service in the RN fighting the Nazis while the Mail were facist sympathisers prior to the start of the war, "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" being a well known headline of theirs.

[St_Tel49]

Whatever you think of Miliband, Labour or the Daily Mail - criticising a dead man to get at his son seems to be a new low in journalism. The Mail's piece is based on a diary Miliband's father wrote when was 17 having just fled the Nazis and was in a strange country.

 

Papers have always been sensationalist in order to attract attention and readers, but there was always a line because if too many people were offended they stopped buying the paper and advertising revenues were hit. Now as mainly web based publications, even people visiting to say how disgusting the article is count as hits, traffic goes up and advertisers pay more. Controversy is king. Its hard to see a future for objective reporting anywhere other than as niche publications on subscription.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24343074

Sadly you are playing into their hands by publishing these links - I would edit and delete them if I were you. I've just realised and edited and deleted them from my quote

Edited 1 October, 2013 by St_Tel49

[buctootim]

Sadly you are playing into their hands by publishing these links - I would edit and delete them if I were you. I've just realised and edited and deleted them from my quote

 

Quite. There's something wrong somewhere when simply being obnoxious enough to have people bothering to tell you that puts money into your pocket.

Edited 1 October, 2013 by buctootim

[buctootim]

Totally agree with the OP. Let's not forget that Miliband Senior saw active service in the RN fighting the Nazis while the Mail were facist sympathisers prior to the start of the war, "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" being a well known headline of theirs.

 

Exactly. And if he had really loathed this country he would have returned to Belgium after the war.

[Verbal]

Totally agree with the OP. Let's not forget that Miliband Senior saw active service in the RN fighting the Nazis while the Mail were facist sympathisers prior to the start of the war, "Hurrah for the Blackshirts" being a well known headline of theirs.

 

Quite so. Here, for example, is the Daily Mail's owner Lord Rothermere, writing in the paper in 1933:

 

I urge all British young men and women to study closely the progress of the Nazi regime in Germany. They must not be misled by the misrepresentations of its opponents. The most spiteful distracters of the Nazis are to be found in precisely the same sections of the British public and press as are most vehement in their praises of the Soviet regime in Russia. They have started a clamorous campaign of denunciation against what they call "Nazi atrocities" which, as anyone who visits Germany quickly discovers for himself, consists merely of a few isolated acts of violence such as are inevitable among a nation half as big again as ours, but which have been generalized, multiplied and exaggerated to give the impression that Nazi rule is a bloodthirsty tyranny.

 

For the Mail, of all papers, to question Ralph Miliband's commitment is the result of either staggering hypocrisy or profound ignorance of its own sickening past. At least there is a consistency here. The Jew-hating Rothermere tended to focus his attacks on British Jews. His successors are doing just the same.

 

Just to illustrate the point, compare these latest Mail ravings with Rothermere in 1930:

 

Tactlessness always has been one of the outstanding defects of the children of Israel. British Jews do not err in this respect nearly as much as their kinsmen of the Continent. Nevertheless, they would do well to remember that the fact of leadership of the Bolshevist campaign against civilization and religion being almost entirely in the hands of men of their blood has done inevitable and incalculable harm to the reputation of the Hebrew race in every country of its adoption.

 

There's really not much of a difference.

[Lord Duckhunter]

Love the lefties outrage at insults towards the dead, just a shame the outrage only extends to a Marxist and not Mrs Thatcher.

[View From The Top]

Love the lefties outrage at insults towards the dead, just a shame the outrage only extends to a Marxist and not Mrs Thatcher.

 

Why? Are the Thatcherites refused right to reply?

 

In addition, no one, even her most ardent critics, would suggest she hated her country, nor that her kids had some secret agenda due to her.

Edited 1 October, 2013 by View From The Top

[Sergei Gotsmanov]

My sympathy for Ed is diluted by his associations with McBride and the fact that he put power before his relationship with his brother. That said I think it was a pretty tasteless means of attack from the Daily Mail - but then I am not a politician

[buctootim]

In addition, no one, even her most ardent critics, would suggest she hated her country, nor that her kids had some secret agenda due to her.

 

 

...and no-one attacked her shopkeeper father because they disliked her.

[buctootim]

My sympathy for Ed is diluted by his associations with McBride and the fact that he put power before his relationship with his brother. That said I think it was a pretty tasteless means of attack from the Daily Mail - but then I am not a politician

 

I think its less about sympathy for Miliband - who is a politician and not pure as the driven - but about whether dead family unconnected with politics should be dragged into them - particularly when the allegations seem highly likely to be untrue. The leaking of medical information about Cameron's and Brown's disabled children is almost as vile.

Edited 1 October, 2013 by buctootim

[Sheaf Saint]

Love the lefties outrage at insults towards the dead, just a shame the outrage only extends to a Marxist and not Mrs Thatcher.

 

Wow! That's a lot of strawmen for somebody who only last week was complaining about himself being the victim of stereotyping and generalisation.

[solentstars]

I think its less about sympathy for Miliband - who is a politician and not pure as the driven - but about whether dead family unconnected with politics should be dragged into them - particularly when the allegations seem highly likely to be untrue. The leaking of medical information about Cameron's and Brown's disabled children is almost as vile.

agree but its the daily mail.. and it just a hate paper of the lunatic fringe and i expect they still have not got over that hitler lost the war and yearn for those days still

[solentstars]

Wow! That's a lot of strawmen for somebody who only last week was complaining about himself being the victim of stereotyping and generalisation.

agree but some people are a lost cause and i expect hes the type who sees reds under the bed,...wonder what paper he reads

[aintforever]

The Mail writing cr@p like that will probably actually make Miliband more popular.

 

Trying to attack someone by using the political beliefs of dead relative is low, even for a scummy paper like the Mail.

Edited 1 October, 2013 by aintforever

[Jonnyboy]

Same sort of hate piece Stephen Fry was referring to last month.

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

Love the lefties outrage at insults towards the dead, just a shame the outrage only extends to a Marxist and not Mrs Thatcher.

 

Yeah but, yeah but....

 

Was the Mail's attack on Miliband senior appropriate or not? Simple question, try and answer without any whataboutery

[Sour Mash]

What is actually offensive about this article? Not the greatest of taste, but hardly deeply offensive either.

[Sergei Gotsmanov]

Same sort of hate piece Stephen Fry was referring to last month.

 

With your avatar I cannot help but chuckle at the hypocrisy.

 

Left or right it offends the British sense of fair play

[Lord Duckhunter]

What is actually offensive about this article? Not the greatest of taste, but hardly deeply offensive either.

 

It's no more offensive than what Brian Reade and toynbee wrote about carol Thatcher's dead mother.

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

It's no more offensive than what Brian Reade and toynbee wrote about carol Thatcher's dead mother.

 

More whataboutery, pathetic.

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

What is actually offensive about this article? Not the greatest of taste, but hardly deeply offensive either.

 

You wouldn't someone slandering a dead relative of yours offensive?

[Sour Mash]

You wouldn't someone slandering a dead relative of yours offensive?

which bits are slander?

[solentstars]

More whataboutery, pathetic.

i think hes still looking at his maggie pin ups posters all over the wall and cant understand why we don,t all worship her and the glory days of the nasty party decade

[Jonnyboy]

With your avatar I cannot help but chuckle at the hypocrisy.

 

Left or right it offends the British sense of fair play

 

You didn't enjoy spitting image? Obviously poor sense of humour as well as poor taste in newspapers.

[CHAPEL END CHARLIE]

The more you think about this story the worse the Daily Mail's stance looks. They say that all publicity is good publicity, but it seems to me this blatant attempt to smear the Leader of the Opposition could turn out to be a spectacular 'own goal' from the Mail's point of view. Just two weeks ago Ed Miliband looked a fairly hapless figure who seemed increasing out of his depth, the wrong Miliband brother many would say. Tonight however after a (very) successful party conference and his principled and dignified response to this disgraceful attack in the Mail he's starting to look for the first time like a proper statesman in my view - a potential Prime Minister even.

 

But back to the Daily Mail. Firstly you have an attack on a dead man who served in the Royal Navy during WWII and obviously can no longer defend himself - this looks bad frankly. From the little I know of him Ralph Miliband does seem to have been a left wing radical of the type that is a anathema to this particular newspaper. But (needless to say) holding lefty/republican views does not itself amount to evidence that he 'hated' of this country. Far from it.

But much worse than any of that is the stunningly cynical assumption that their own readership is such a prejudiced and ignorant bunch that they will blindly accept the idea that a son must inherit his fathers political views as if politics could be passed down via paternal DNA! Judge a man on what he says and does, not on who his bloody father was for pity's sake.

 

Freedom of the press is a very important principle of course. That same press having something intelligent and relevant to say about the state of our politics wouldn't be a bad idea either methinks ...

[solentstars]

The more you think about this story the worse the Daily Mail's stance looks. They say that all publicity is good publicity, but it seems to me this blatant attempt to smear the Leader of the Opposition could turn out to be a spectacular 'own goal' from the Mail's point of view. Just two weeks ago Ed Miliband looked a fairly hapless figure who seemed increasing out of his depth, the wrong Miliband brother many would say. Tonight however after a (very) successful party conference and his principled and dignified response to this disgraceful attack in the Mail he's starting to look for the first time like a proper statesman in my view - a potential Prime Minister even.

 

But back to the Daily Mail. Firstly you have an attack on a dead man who served in the Royal Navy during WWII and obviously can no longer defend himself - this looks bad frankly. From the little I know of him Ralph Miliband does seem to have been a left wing radical of the type that is a anathema to this particular newspaper. But (needless to say) holding lefty/republican views does not itself amount to evidence that he 'hated' of this country. Far from it.

But much worse than any of that is the stunningly cynical assumption that their own readership is such a prejudiced and ignorant bunch that they will blindly accept the idea that a son must inherit his fathers political views as if politics could be passed down via paternal DNA! Judge a man on what he says and does, not on who his bloody father was for pity's sake.

 

Freedom of the press is a very important principle of course. That same press having something intelligent and relevant to say about the state of our politics wouldn't be a bad idea either methinks ...

good post and its amazing that for a guy who supposedly hates this country so much ,he fought in the war and like alot of the the soldiers after the war and that generation did not want to go back pre war Britain condition and voted labour in 1945 to build a fairer country which some the nutty right want take us back to pre-war Briton have never been involved in war .i think its back fired on the mail and opened eyes to people who did not realise that the mail gave support to hitler and britsh blackshirts . Edited 1 October, 2013 by solentstars

[Sergei Gotsmanov]

You didn't enjoy spitting image? Obviously poor sense of humour as well as poor taste in newspapers.

 

Where did I say that and how do you know what newspapers I read?

 

I just find it ironic that on a thread that questions the taste of speaking ill of the dead you chose to join the condemnation with your choice of Avatar.

[Sergei Gotsmanov]

You didn't enjoy spitting image? Obviously poor sense of humour as well as poor taste in newspapers.

 

Where did I say that and how do you know what newspapers I read?

 

I just find it ironic that on a thread that questions the taste in speaking ill of the dead you chose to join the condemnation with your choice of Avatar.

[Batman]

Slating carol thatchers mother is ok?

[Sour Mash]

More whataboutery, pathetic.

 

i think hes still looking at his maggie pin ups posters all over the wall and cant understand why we don,t all worship her and the glory days of the nasty party decade

These posts show how much you two are really concerned about showing respect to other people.

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

which bits are slander?

 

are you actually thick or just pretending? how about the headline that read "the man who hated Britain". I sure wouldn't appreciate a headline like that about one of my parents.

 

Looks like the Mirror are getting in some retaliation:

 

https://twitter.com/LWEmbley66/status/385050163988803585/photo/1

[buctootim]

Slating carol thatchers mother is ok?

 

I didn't agree with a lot of the comment when Thatcher died, but at least it was about a politician who put herself on the line and her legacy - not about her mother or father.

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

These posts show how much you two are really concerned about showing respect to other people.

 

lol saying that someone has written a pathetic post really is the height of nastiness isn't it. FFS.

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

Slating carol thatchers mother is ok?

 

Slating Milband's dad is OK?

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

...

[Sour Mash]

are you actually thick or just pretending? how about the headline that read "the man who hated Britain". I sure wouldn't appreciate a headline like that about one of my parents.

 

Looks like the Mirror are getting in some retaliation:

 

https://twitter.com/LWEmbley66/status/385050163988803585/photo/1

And there you go again. No need to get so angry if you're unable to explain your pont.

[solentstars]

These posts show how much you two are really concerned about showing respect to other people.

 

Coming from you I take that as a compliment that the nasty party wing get touchy.

 

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

And there you go again. No need to get so angry if you're unable to explain your pont.

 

I'm surprised you've been able to last long enough to make well over seven thousand posts on here if you're that easily riled. It's obvious that it's slanderous and distasteful and you decided to play the useful idiot.

[Viking Warrior]

Just seen this article on the independent . Millipede needs to stop clyping

 

His father had different values to the uk but managed to escape to the uk . While he might of served in the uk . It was the Belgium element of the { RN . You have not mentioned that mr millipede and only reached the rank of cpo .

 

The three missing years to which he refers were spent in service as a naval rating in the Belgian section of the Royal Navy. Aware of the fact that many of his Belgian comrades were engaged in the war against Fascism and traumatised by the absence of his mother and sister, he had volunteered, using Laski's influence to override the bureaucracy. He served on a number of destroyers and warships, helping to intercept German radio messages. He rose to the rank of Chief Petty Officer and was greatly amused on one occasion when his new commanding officer informed him how he had been rated by a viscount who had commanded the ship on which he had previously served: 'Miliband is stupid, but always remains cheerful.'

[whelk]

The #mydadhatedbritain I saw on twitter earlier were quite amusing.

[badgerx16]

1) Shock horror - a self proclaimed marxist thought that the British class system and Monarchy were outdated and should be replaced. ( FWIW, Eric Pickles was a marxist at school ).

 

2) Shock horror - the Daily Mail writes an article during the Tory party conference that derides a marxist. ( Stereotypical foaming at the mouth, pandering to their loyal readership ).

 

Why is either of these points a surprise ?

[Jonnyboy]

Where did I say that and how do you know what newspapers I read?

 

I just find it ironic that on a thread that questions the taste in speaking ill of the dead you chose to join the condemnation with your choice of Avatar.

 

"The woman who hated Britain" should be on her grave stone.

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

"The woman who hated Britain" should be on her grave stone.

 

Fallen into a trap their mate, even if you were being ironic or deliberately provocative.

[Saintandy666]

What has Margaret Thatcher got to with this? View this as a separate issue on its on seriousness if you have any principles!

[Lord Duckhunter]

What has Margaret Thatcher got to with this? View this as a separate issue on its on seriousness if you have any principles!

 

The moral outrage from some on here appears to contain caveats.

 

By asking whether they were outraged by some of the vicious stuff written about Thatcher, we can establish whether this is a principled disgust or a political one.

 

But you knew that all along.

[anothersaintinsouthsea]

The moral outrage from some on here appears to contain caveats.

 

By asking whether they were outraged by some of the vicious stuff written about Thatcher, we can establish whether this is a principled disgust or a political one.

 

But you knew that all along.

 

The poster that started the whataboutery tries to take the high ground. A tad cheeky.

[Batman]

Slating Milband's dad is OK?

 

Neither are, but it seemed all well and good slating Maggie when she died.

[CB Fry]

Neither are, but it seemed all well and good slating Maggie when she died.

 

You do realise Thatcher was a hate figure for certain types for decades before she died?

 

Whatever the rights/wrongs of this, it is completely incomparable to Thatcher.