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Daily Mail Ed Miliband Labour Party

Ed Miliband should be wary of making Daily Mail battle a Leveson issue or face losing wider press sympathy

By Chris Boffey

October 2, 2013 | 5 min read

When I worked for the Blair Labour government a special adviser in another ministry had a picture from 1934 stuck on the wall by his desk of the owner of the Daily Mail meeting Hitler.

He knew he had to deal with the Mail and liked and respected most of the reporters he dealt with on a day-to-day basis, but needed a constant reminder that the Mail and its editor Paul Dacre were feral beasts that always had to be kept at arms length.

That same colleague rang me today and said he could not believe what the Mail was doing to the Miliband family. I was surprised that he was surprised.

The Mail is the most professional of all the newspapers. It knows its market and its readers. The moment that Ed Miliband said in an aside to a member of the public that he was a socialist, and later in his keynote speech to the Labour Party conference advocated freezing energy prices, the Mail was in attack mode. Dacre knows that the socialism is like a red rag to bull to the readers of the Mail. News and features would have been told to start work and features came out on top.

A fly on the wall would have heard someone mention that, of course, Ralph Miliband, was a Marxist academic. A team of researchers would have started looking at Ed Miliband's past speeches to see what he had said about his dad's influence and started investigating Ralph's background. Geoffrey Levy, a stalwart of the Daily Express in its pomp during the 1970s, who then moved to Mail, was called in it to do the writing. Levy is virtually retired but is brought out for the big one when needed.

But Levy would not have written the headline that claimed Miliband pater hated Britain and that is where the Mail, in the eyes of many, made a misjudgment. The headline was not backed up by the copy. It was not fair.

On Saturday, when the article appeared, it would have been just another attack on a Labour politician until Miliband fought back and demanded a right of reply. Hubris is not lacking at the Mail and anyone questioning its editorial integrity, common decency or right to publish is an enemy.

At that point, when Miliband demanded they publish his article defending his father, the Mail's thinking would have turned to Leveson. Wasn't this the same Miliband who wanted statuary control of the press? Is this the thin end of the wedge?

Of course the Mail has the right to investigate the influence of the father on the son but with right comes responsibility and this is where the battle over Leveson is being fought. Who is responsible for a free and fair press: the public in the form of the state or the industry?

Initially the Miliband affair had nothing to do with Leveson but the Mail is on shaky ground on its premise that Miliband senior was evil and hated Britain and is trying to move the argument on to press freedom.

Labour Party sources have told me that's this is a personal issue for Miliband but where is his brother, David, in all this? David was a pure Blairite on the right of the party. Any attack on the Mail from him would possibly carry more weight than "red Ed's".

The Mail will be relishing this fight and know that it is supported by most of its readers.

Ed Miliband would have gone into battle not expecting it to be quite so dirty but now will have to take into account the political ramifications. So far social media sites seem to be on his side. The public are more or less fair minded but Miliband must beware of straying on to Mail territory and making it an issue of press power and regulation. If that happens he will lose any support he has from the rest of the written press.

Chris Boffey is a former news editor of the Observer, Sunday Telegraph and the Mirror and onetime special adviser to the Labour government

Daily Mail Ed Miliband Labour Party

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