The Daily Mail has the right to talk about Ralph Miliband in relation to his son, the Labour leader Ed Miliband. Miliband Junior has made extensive references to the love and respect he has for his late father and the influence he had on his moral outloook. The character and background of a politician is important. So if the Mail thinks Ralph was a dangerous Marxist who had doubts about his national loyalties then it’s valid, if barrel-scraping, to raise that.
But beyond this simple fact of freedom of expression and political genealogy this was a nasty, stupid and pointless attack that might well backfire. I suspect it will garner sympathy for Ed and admiration for his robust assault on the Mail’s smear.
[My colleague Bart Cammaerts makes a much more ideologically grounded assault upon the Mail including some interesting comments by Ralph Miliband himself on the UK press as it was then, and, perhaps still is in this blog post]
I Am Biased By My Background Too
I should declare an interest. My mother was also an immigrant to this country – though driven by economic not political circumstances. She never quite passed the cricket test, or rather the West Germany v England football test, in my eyes. She couldn’t understand why I was upset when Netzer, Muller and co destroyed ‘us’ 3-1 at Wembley in 1972.
She would always buy German if she could. I think she only fully respected me on the day I turned up in a (second hand) Merc. And while she had little enthusiasm for the works of the European Union she encouraged a constant stream of foreign visitors to our house and was delighted when we, in turn, formed cosmopolitan friendships around the world.
She also gave 40 years of her working life to educating British children, most from deprived backgrounds – as well as raising five of her own, largely as a single parent. Her favourite annual media moments were Last Night of the Proms, the Boat Race and the Christmas Carol Service from Kings.
Culture of Tolerance
Most of all, she thought that the British culture of tolerance was unique and precious. Not that ‘they’ didn’t have prejudices – including against her. But she was quite clear about how much better the Brits were at accepting difference and allowing people to get on with their lives. She loved the quiet solidarity shown to her in times of need and the undemonstrative affection from our British-born friends.
But if you look closely through the Beckett family album, you’ll find a monochrome photo of my mum wearing a swastika brooch*. God forbid that I should ever get near elected office, but in the unlikely event that the wider world ever took an interest in me, that would make a wonderful Daily Mail headline about ‘Beckett’s Nazi Past’. Although, considering the Mail’s history of support for Hitler, they might see it as supportive rather than a smear.
Personality is an essential part of politics. This is not just a shallow media attitude. Political scientists have clearly shown that the public makes psychological, emotional and personal judgments about their leaders. The news media can try to discuss fine policy detail but in the end it is about trust. In a social media age of greater personalisation this is only going to increase.
Liberal Attacks
The Mail attack on Ralph was desperate stuff. I easily get bored by liberals attacking the Mail for being right-wing, but I agree in this case that Geoffrey Levy’s piece had all the hallmarks of the nastiest kind of propaganda with its mendacious associations and non-sequiturs.
It’s good that the Mail have published Ed’s stout response, though they made sure to surround it with their own case. For this kind of journalism to triumph it only requires that politicians don’t fight back. In the battlefield of reputation there are new rules of engagement. As we saw from Damian McBride’s book about his time as Gordon Brown’s spinner, the politicians have indulged similar vindictive character assassinations. But social media, for example, allows much greater critique of these tactics which do little to engender public engagement with politics itself.
Politics in the 21st century is not going to get cleaner. Character will remain at the heart of the discourse of power. For politicians the task is to be true to your heritage, but to explain with transparency who you are and what you believe.
Update:
My colleague Dr Bart Cammaerts has a different point of view on this, with some interesting quotes from Ralph Miliband on the media.
Not good when your main source argues against your article. Ralph Miliband biographer says his work was misrepresented by the Mail.
Interesting view from Israel
Off the main point (which is the use of father against the son) but Benedict Brogan makes a point about how we’ve forgotten the Cold War context of Ralph M’s Marxism
[* I am not certain, but my guess is that the brooch dates from when she served as part of an anti-aircraft unit in the last months of the war, along with hundreds of thousands of teenagers called up in those desperate days. The swastika was so ubiquitous that it’s difficult to assign any special significance. A bit like a Brit wearing a union flag badge in the 1970s didn’t mean you were a National Front supporter?]
The Daily Mail has the right to be as wrong as it likes.
It also had the right to be Hitler’s lickspittle in the 1930’s and to start a campaign against the MMR jab (for which they have never apologised for the bad results which resulted).
The Daily Mail also has the right never to apologise for its malicious spite.
GHasslet
I don’t agree. Just because the attacks didn’t even have any facts behind them.
They were essentially calling him “evil” and “hating Britain” as he disliked the class system, disliked public schools, disliked foreign intervention, and disliked religion.
You know, if that’s someone who hates Britain then 50% of the current population hate their country
I am amazed at how many people seem confused with Fascism and Marxism – but then they probably read the Daily Mail. That in itself is to me an iindication of the critical thinking of most of their readers. Now I am living in France have I the right to comment – but why am I here?
It seems to me that we have one very highly politicised father with two very highly politicised sons. It strikes me that the nature of the father’s politics is of public interest, especially given that the father happened to hold views that in this day and age are usually “kept in the closet”.
The public have a right to know if Ed Milliband might be a closet Marxist revolutionary biding his time to get his hands on power in order to bring about the return of the gulags, and Ed’s political upbringing clearly has a bearing on opinons that people might form, just as his association might well illuminate Ed’s actual opinions rather than those he would prefer to air in public. The Mail is quite right to draw attention to Ed’s background. He clearly doesn’t like what the Mail has to say and that’s no surprise. People who read the Mail often vote Labour but rarely take a shine to Marxists. They could be seduced by a Blairite but not a Bennite.
I do take issue with one specific part of the Mail article. It claims that Milliband senior “hated Britain”. I think that gives a wrong impression. It suggests that the “hate” was personal. I doubt that. Milliband senior simply hated all countries that weren’t Marxist. On the flip-side of that, some have said that Milliband senior was “fought bravely in the Royal Navy and therefore was proud to be British”. That’s about as daft as saying de Gaulle must have been very proud to be British because he committed the French forces to fight alongside British troops.
I really don’t know what all the fuss is about. David Blunket was a “loony lefty” when he ran Sheffield Council and this was quietly forgotten by the media when the Blairites took power. Harriet Harman held some very radical views on the politics of sexual identity indeed (I don’t think the Mail has yet done an exposé on those!). Many of those that served in the Blair cabinet had been radical left-wingers as students – all forgotten when they put on their business suits in 1997. When the establishment determines they have tired of having the Tories in power, then they will present a newer, shinier Labour party for us to enjoy.
An excellent post Ryan. Miliband has on many occasions talked about the influence his father had on his political views and vision for Britain, so it’s only right that we the public know what these views ( instilled in him when he was growing up ) actually were. If he wants to bring his late father into his speeches, then he is asking for it to come back and bite him on the backside! It also sickened me to see him use his wife and young sons as ‘props’ at the Labour party conference. The pictures of them posing as lovestruck teenagers fooled nobody. I think all this fightback of his stems from his desire to control the press as was proved with his 2am meeting with Hacked Off held in his office all those months ago. I would hate this man and his socialist views to get into Number 10.
I recall that Miiliband thought it a great joke when he saw a T shirt at the TUC congress villifying Lady Thatcher who was suffering from Dementia. Nut he doesn’t seem to like it when someone turns the tables.
it is ludicrous for the Daily Mail to suggest that a son is influenced by a father. My father was totally anti war and a keen member of the trade union movement. I have served in the army and am conservative politically. I remember many heated debates on our differences.
Re your comments about the Daily Mail, the following rebuts your assertion:-
The Mail did indeed support the Blackshirts briefly [the infamous ‘Hurrah For The Blackshirts’ headline appeared in January 1934], but Rothermere withdrew his support following the violence at the Olympia rally in June 1934.
This withdrawal was documented in correspondence between him and Mosley, which was published in the Mail in July of that year. On 14 July, Rothermere wrote to Mosley:
‘As you know, I have never thought that a movement calling itself ‘Fascist’ could be successful in this country, and I have also made it quite clear in my conversations with you that I never could support any movement with an anti-Semitic basis, any movement which had dictatorship as one of its objectives, or any movement which will substitute a ‘Corporate State’ for the Parliamentary institutions of this country.’
As for Ed and his father Ralph; Ralph was a Marxist, who owed his loyalty to the Dogma and as far as I’m concerned that means Mother Russia, the Rodina. Ralph’s father (a Polish Jew) was a supporter of the Russian Revolution and backed the Soviet armed forces in their attempt, 1919-1921, to strangle the birth of the nascent state of Poland, forces led by Stalin and Trotsky for whom he gave his armed support. The upshot of that was following the Communist defeat and retreat, Milliband grandpere beat a hasty departure to Belgium.
Thanks for your remarks, but my original assertions were about the Mail’s support for Hitler, indeed, even enthusiastic support, which as far as I am aware, went right up to the annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938. As soon as Rothermere realised he had been “had” by Hitler, he changed track. Actually, I don’t totally blame Rothers for this, as many other right wingers were so duped. Odd though, that the modern Daily Mail is hazy about its past triumphs whilst being eager to remember everyone elses.
GH
If they were attacking Ralph Milliband, why did they see fit to publish photographs with his offspring? Is guilt by association the standard of truth now. If so, Osborne seems to have quoted Hitler’s February 1933 speech regarding the unemployed.
I suppose it would be illegitimate to say the Nazi’s are back in power. 75 years to late for the late Lord Rothermere.
It was right for the Daily Mail to point this out. I want to know if Ed is some kind of Marxist Manchurian Candidate. You know he these staring eyes, a robotic manner, behaves l like a stuck record; “These strikes are wrong, These strikes are wrong, These strikes are wrong”, “It’s a lie, a lie, a lie”, ” We need to be clear-eyed, we need to be clear-eyed, we need to be clear-eyed, we need to be clear-eyed.”
We live in a country now that does not value it’s culture and the values that our fathers fought for in the last world war.We have lost our own sense of “Britishness”, the qualities of tolerance, generosity and fairness have been completely eroded from our society.We are overwhelmed by immigration and their culture is rapidly swamping ours.The sad fact is that people like Ralph Milliband have been encouraged to broadcast their views, of Marxism and multiculturalism, thus destroying our way of life. Anybody who tries to promote Nationlism, any sort of “right wing ” bias is vilified.I think the Daily Mail were absolutely right to print these facts.
Jeanne, your post typifies everything that is hypocritical about the Daily Mail and it’s ilk.
But I agree with you on one point though- the qualities of generosity, tolerance and fairness has been completely eroded from this society, as evidenced by the Mail’s disgusting attempt to conflate criticism with ‘hatred’. In this poisonous narrative, if you are objectively critical the monarchy, the feudal class system, public schools or the collective denial of (often not particularly bright) people who can’t come to terms with Britain’s loss of status in the wider world, you ‘hate’ Britain.
Thankfully, the majority are not buying this- there is a wave of revulsion against the Mail. I would argue it is people like you who hate Britain, the tolerant, diverse, inclusive, multicultural society that we are today. People who don’t have no place here, please leave.
Those who speak of nationalism would do well to remember
“Patriotism is proud of a country’s virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country’s virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, “the greatest,” but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is”. — Sydney J. Harris
I believe the Daily Mail attack to be another example of the Murdochian-style of hyper personalised journalism and represents another negative development in the way British media covers politics and pins its neo-liberal, right-wing agenda to the mast.
I am far from naive and as as a MSc Politics and Comminication student, I will be learning about the theoretical framework of this discussion in further depth, but it seems to be that ethical standards and self-regulation have completely failed. This type of blatantly partisan gutter journalism will always prevail in differing guises, but this week with the developments around the Leveson Inquiry, there is a great need to accelerate a process of journalism that has strong regulatory structures. Self-regulation has irrefutably failed in this country and the insinuation by the Mail that a liberal academic that spent the entirely of his career critiquing, arguing and debating passionately in fact hated his country, is further proof that the British media has completely lost its way. This is the very type of academic endeavour that should be embraced for a liberal democracy to continue to mature and develop.
but you’ve written a piece about why they “should be allowed to”, not why they were “right to”.