Alastair Campbell Savages Mail Editor Over Miliband Slur

THE GUARDIAN: Newspaper's deputy editor, Jon Steafel, stands by attack on Labour leader's father in heated debate on Newsnight


The row between Ed Miliband and the Daily Mail continued on Tuesday night as a senior executive from the newspaper refused to apologise for its attack on the Labour leader's late father but admitted that publishing a photograph of his gravestone with a pun about him being a "grave socialist" was an error of judgment.

In an interview on BBC2's Newsnight, the paper's deputy editor, Jon Steafel, refused to retract the paper's savage attack on Ralph Miliband in an article in Saturday's edition headlined: The man who hated Britain.

Steafel's appearance was an unprecedented public outing for a Mail executive. The paper's editor pursues a strict policy of being an "outsider" who believes his journalism can speak for itself and refuses to publicly pronounce on his paper over the decades he has been at the helm.

He said the piece was based on Miliband's public views and was justified. "Ralph Miliband's views were spread widely. His views on British institutions, from our schools to our royal family to our military, to our universities to the church. What he said was, he felt that all of those things were bad aspects, were unfortunate aspects of British life," Steafel said.

He said Miliband's father's views expressed in his "writings, his diaries, his books, his speeches", combined with his Marxist ideology, showed he was "very antipathetic to the views of a lot of British people". He added: "We thought it was reasonable to highlight those views." » | Lisa O’Carroll | Wednesday, October 02, 2013

Related »

Daily Mail Deputy Editor Defends Miliband Father Profile, But Concedes 'Error of Judgement' Over Grave Image

The Daily Mail's deputy editor defended its profile of Ed Miliband's father in a heated exchange with Alastair Campbell on Newsnight, but conceded the paper made an 'error of judgement' in using an image of Ralph Miliband's grave in online coverage.

Read the Telegraph article here | Rhiannon Williams | Wednesday, October 02, 2013
Related »

WIKI: Alastair Campbell »

Daily Mail: An Evil Legacy and Why We Won’t Apologise

MAIL ONLINE: Red Ed’s in a strop with the Mail. Doubtless, he’s miffed that his conference was overshadowed by the revelations of his former friend, the spin doctor Damian McBride, serialised in this paper, which exposed the poisonous heart of the Labour Party.

Nor did he see the funny side when we ridiculed the yucky, lovey-dovey photographs of him and his wife, behaving like a pair of hormonal teenagers in need of a private room.

But what has made him vent his spleen — indeed, he has stamped his feet and demanded a right of reply — is a Mail article by Geoffrey Levy on Saturday about the Labour leader’s late father, Ralph, under the arresting headline ‘The Man Who Hated Britain’.

Of course, it was not the Mail that first drew the prominent Marxist sociologist Professor Ralph Miliband — a man who was not averse to publicity — into the public arena. This was the decision of his son who, for two years running, has told Labour conferences how his refugee father fled Nazi persecution to Britain.

More pertinent still, McBride argues that Miliband Jnr is obsessed with maintaining Ralph’s legacy.

Winning the leadership, he writes, was Ed’s ‘ultimate tribute’ to his father — an attempt to ‘achieve his father’s vision’.

With this testimony before us, from a former Labour spin doctor who knew Mr Miliband inside out, the Mail felt a duty to lay before our readers the father’s vision that is said to have inspired our would-be next Prime Minister.

Today, we stand by every word we published on Saturday, from the headline to our assertion that the beliefs of Miliband Snr ‘should disturb everyone who loves this country’. » | Daily Mail Comment | Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Ed Miliband Reacts Angrily »

As the Labour Leader Reacts Angrily to Our Critique of His Marxist Father... We repeat: This Man Did Hate Britain

MAIL ONLINE: One hot summer day in 1940, Ralph Miliband made his way to Karl Marx’s grave at Highgate Cemetery, in North London, and made a pledge.

In his own words: ‘The cemetery was utterly deserted . . . I remember standing in front of the grave, fists clenched, and swearing my own private oath that I would be faithful to the workers’ cause.’

It was a lifelong cause the 16-year-old immigrant, who fled here with his father from Belgium to escape the Nazis, never deserted.

Ralph’s Marxism was uncompromising. ‘We want this party to state that it stands unequivocally behind the social ownership and control of the means of production, distribution and exchange,’ he declared to the 1955 Labour Party conference as the delegate from Hampstead. ‘We are a Socialist party engaged on a great adventure.’

Of course, he could only embark on this ‘adventure’ because of the protection, the education and, crucially, the political freedom, that this country gave him.

So how did he view this country? As an already politically aware 17-year-old, he wrote in his diary: ‘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.’

To help defeat Hitler, Ralph Miliband volunteered and served three years in the Royal Navy. When Labour, under Clement Attlee, swept to power after the war in 1945, he joyfully described the victory as ‘the country’s capture from its traditional rulers’. » | Geoffrey Levy | Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Ed Miliband Accuses Daily Mail over ‘Lie’ about Father »

Ed Miliband Accuses Daily Mail over 'Lie' about Father

BBC: Ed Miliband has accused the Daily Mail of lying about his father after the newspaper headlined an article about him as "The man who hated Britain".

The Labour leader said he was "appalled" that after offering him a right of reply, the paper had repeated its original article and also now "described my father's legacy as evil".

He said it raised questions about morality and boundaries for newspapers.

The Mail says it will not apologise and stands by the story.

In Saturday's article, journalist Geoffrey Levy questioned how the beliefs of Ralph Miliband, a Marxist academic who died in 1994, may have influenced the Labour leader and his brother, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband. » | Tuesday, October 01, 2013