Ed Milliband talks to the BBC about the Daily Mail’s ugly insistence that Ralph Milliband hated Britain.
Later, in an interview with reporters, Mr Miliband said it was “perfectly legitimate” for newspapers to discuss his father’s politics.
But he said: “I was appalled when I read the Daily Mail on Saturday and I saw them say he hated Britain. It’s a lie.
“I’m even more appalled that they repeated that lie today and they’ve gone further and described my father’s legacy as evil. Evil is a word reserved for particular cases and I wasn’t willing to let that stand.”
He added that there were “boundaries” that newspapers should adhere to.
“It’s not about regulation… but it is about me saying I think morality and our approach to these things matters.”
He’s not going to send in soldiers. He’s not going to throw the reporter in prison. It’s not about regulation, it’s about morality.
In a developed country with strong respect for the rule of law and the fourth estate, some forms of regulation should be on the table for discussion.
Journalism does self regulation about as well as the tobacco industry did. Or maybe I’m just an Australian that needs the internet to find anything that’s not been put through the Murdoch news filter.
Did not the UK use to have some legislation concerning attacks on people’s good name and reputation? Something about a label?
It is impossible to libel the dead.
They managed to get the word ‘Jewish’ into the article quite a bit. Add to that the reference to ‘the jealous God of Deuteronomy’ in their follow-up piece and you’d think they had the same editors as they did in the ’30s