Thanks to the Daily Mail’s rather unpleasant and ill-conceived trashing (“The Man Who Hated Britain”) of Ed Miliband’s Marxist father, Ralph Miliband, Tory party conference seems to have been rather eclipsed by the fallout from the piece, which has led to overwhelming support for Miliband.
What is most amusing is the “glass houses” element that they obviously never thought about: while Ralph Miliband, whose patriotism they question, served in the Royal Navy and fought for his country against the Nazis, the first Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, was famously friendly towards Hitler. So today some lovely Rothermere history surfaced.
Compare and contrast the following (thanks to @ivanwhite48 for the first):
Telegram from Daily Mail owner, Lord Rothermere, to Hitler, 1938:
“I salute your Excellency’s star, which rises higher and higher.”
George Galloway to Saddam Hussein, 1994:
“I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability”
I would not suggest that the modern Daily Mail holds the extremist views of its founder. But in the end, the meeting of far right and far left, or “Molotov-Ribbentrop” as my friend John Rentoul calls it, after the brief wartime pact between the Nazis and the Communists, is almost an inevitability.
They never can resist a good dictator.
Touche 🙂
Why thank you.