The Anonymous Widower

Ed Milliband and the Daily Mail

We all have skeletons in our families.  Mine is my uncle, who was one for the ladies and was always in trouble. During the Second World War, he actually had a bigamous marriage, from which there were children.

My father’s political leanings were very much Tory, but to the left of the party. He would probably have views like Kenneth Clarke today. But my father was a passionate anti-fascist, probably because of his partly Jewish ancestry. He was also one of the most non-racist men I have met of his generation. I can’t remember too well, but I don’t think he liked dictators and as he had names for them all in his Cockney poetry.

A couple of weeks ago, I met a man of my age, who said that his father was a died in the wool communist, who never condemned Stalin till the day he died.  He joked about it, but I suspect that was because he was rather embarrassed by his father supporting Stalin.  Alexei Sayle joked about his parents hard-line communism on The One Show last night.

I would suspect that the Milliband brothers, are in some ways embarrassed by some of the views of their father.  Most of us have a similar view about our own father, although, I don’t think I ever heard mine, pontificate on anything controversial in a way, that we would find politically incorrect.  Some of my mother’s views were not so acceptable?

All politicians live in glass houses, with everything they do, don’t do or have done under the greatest scrutiny. And all of their ancestors come under close scrutiny.

Just as the political views of Denis Thatcher,  Alfred Roberts, Tony Booth and other related to previous Prime Ministers, have been important to the Press and the scandal-loving British public, Ralph Milliband‘s political views would come under scrutiny from a paper like the Mail, the Express or the Sun. Especially, as some on the left have hard left views very unacceptable to those in the Labour Party, who want to bring it into the twenty-first century.

So in my view the Milliband brothers should have clean about the more unacceptable views of their father years ago, and perhaps joked about it in a more sympathetic medium, as Alexei Sayle and others have done. I don’t have this problem with my father, but anyway, I’m not a politician and my father wasn’t either, so it’s not important.

Now that the Daily Mail has attacked Ed Milliband for his father’s views, the story is out in the open. The Mail’s behaviour since has been unacceptable, but Ed Milliband’s keeping it going is in many ways making it worse. I haven’t seen any comments from his brother.  But then David’s in the United States, where communist connections bring a different reaction.

After all, everybody in the country now knows the full story of Ralph Milliband and it will play a large part in the next General Election. Those to the right will play the Reds under the bed card and those on the hard left will play their Class War one.

In my view though, Ed Milliband has shown a lack of judgement in how he handled his father’s views. Compare it with the way Tony Blair handled those of his father.

Today there is this report on the BBC entitled Ed Miliband urges Daily Mail owner to examine ‘culture’.

It’s not the culture of the Press that needs examining, it’s the culture of the country, where most people seem to value celebrity tittle-tattle well above real issues. Just look at the sales of celebrity magazines!

Ed Milliband is now on BBC Breakfast going on about it again.

Does he not know, when it is time to stop fanning the flames of an out-of-control fire?

October 4, 2013 Posted by AnonW | World | Ed Miliband, Family, Fascism, My Father, Politics | 2 Comments