Time For The Daily Mail To Apologise?

[sp1814]

A YouGov poll reveals that 69% of the nation thinks that the Daily Mail owes Ed Milliband an apology for trashing his father.

And more tellingly, 57% of the paper's own readership think the same.

In what other circumstances could a national paper get away with dancing on the grave of a war hero?

[sp1814]

emmie

No...that can easily be countered by comparing the number of complaints as a percentage of its readership.

[Brenden]

OMG sp, how on earth do you gauge your standards -

[sp1814]

Gromit

Ed was indeed photographed with a gentleman wearing anti-Thatcher t-shirt. But emmie, I would counter that a man who served in the RAF during the war was not a man who hated Britain.

That for me - is the ravings of a lunatic.

If I went around trashing dead war heroes, the Mail would be the first to denounce me.

[emmie]

actually read this entire piece it is pretty impartial given the subject matter. the author is right that Cameron comes in for flak for his so called privileged background, tory toff, you know the sort of comments, so that's his family disparaged good and proper..

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/10/the-daily-mail-is-disreputable-twisted-tendentious-and-malignant-thank-heavens-for-that/

[sp1814]

Brenden

It's easy...

Newspapers that print print pictures of the 14 year old daughters of celebrities, describing them as a 'leggy beauty' fall below the standards I demand from a news source.

Newspapers who fill their website with stories of Honey Boo Boo, Jennifer Lopez (and her bottom), The Only Way Is Essex cast, Big Brother, Simon Cowell, Katie Holmes and various bikini-clad women whose bodies are either 'too fat' or 'too thin'...fall below the standard I demand.

Basically when I read a paper, I don't want to be fooled into thinking I'm reading Heat or OK. That's why I go for The Observer and Independent.

Also - have you ever noticed how the Mail gets basic facts wrong!

[Gromit]

Apologies emmie

the photo does exist, i searched for the T-Shirt last time you mentioned it and couldn't find anything.

// A spokesman for Mr Miliband said yesterday: ‘Mr Miliband had no idea that the man’s T-shirt had that slogan on it. If he had done he would not have had his picture taken with him.
‘He disapproved of not only the Thatcher T-shirt but also the message on it and the sentiments behind it. //

So, no deliberate disrespect to Thatcher intended.

I have just been searching for national newspaper headlines rejoicing Thatchers death. I haven't found any, perhaps you would oblige again.

[emmie]

it would seem that Milliband senior didn't much like the establishment, and if you think that was a rather large part of people's lives once upon a time, Royalty, Church, and the State, so if he rubbished them when a young man, and indeed as he got older, irrespective if he served in the war then some would see that as not liking Britain very much,.
his Marxist teachings, working at the LSE would rather suggest he was a very left thinking person, and at the time that was akin to anarchy, not so much now. The establishment is still there but is fast diminishing, the church and the royals are no longer major players in every day life in Britain,
so his views at the time and later may be construed as rather anti British.
not everyone who fought in both wars wanted to be there, many i am pretty sure didn't. He volunteered, perhaps it was his way of attacking those who had his homeland, same as the Polish airmen, and many more besides.

[emmie]

Gromit, that wasn't even the one i mentioned first, there is a later one, there might be others who knows

[emmie]

Gromit, you really should take those rose coloured specs off, Mr Milliband is a politician with those dark arts at his disposal, you don't have pics taken with someone without looking who it is, do you?

[emmie]

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=photos+of+parties+of+maggie+thatcher+death&client=firefox-a&hs=BzU&;rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&;tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=yc1TUpHOLsyS1AXxnICYDg&ved=0CC8QsAQ&biw=1077&bih=448&dpr=1.25

[emmie]

is that enough....

[failedagain]

Emmie, the article you linked to is dated 7 May 2011, almost two years before Thatcher died (8 April 2013), so it's not a picture of someone disrespecting a dead person.
Also, the article mentions Miliband's "Marxist intellectual father Ralph and Left-wing mother Marion", which proves that the recent articles about his father are not new discoveries (ie, journalism), as you implied earlier.

[emmie]

admittedly it is the socialist worker, i guess i could find others, but the parties, and the ghoulish folk in the previous link rather spell it out.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/why-we-had-to-rejoice-after-margaret-thatchers-death-by-the-editor-behind-provocative-socialist-worker-front-page-8570578.html

[emmie]

i didn't say either were new, i said there are there for all to see. And the photo featuring ed with his arm round another bloke wearing similar t shirt was printed in the paper a week or so ago. I am sure that everyone is tired of this, as am i.

[joggerjayne]

I'm just trying to remember how the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition responded when Mrs Thatcher died, and a song was reissued ...

Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead

In his official capacity as the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, did he say what a disgrace it was that the national Press and Media should give publicity to such a sick and disgusting personal attack on someone who was dead?

I can't remember.

Perhaps he did.

After all, he was the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, so I'm sure he would have made a stand. It's obviously important to him to make sure that the national Press don't behave disrespectfully.

[Gromit]

Emmie,
I am not a fan of Miliband, and if I could be bothered I could link to several answers demonstrating that. I do not have rose tinted glasses about him, but I am prepared give him the benefit of the doubt. To pose with someone with such a T-Shirt is clearly damaging and it would be very dumb to do so on purpose. I don't think Miliband is very good, but I do not think he is dumb.

// it would seem that Milliband senior didn't much like the establishment... Royalty, Church, and the State. //
I don't much like them either. But I don't hate my country.

[mikey4444]

You are all missing the point. I repeat, the only reason that the DM carried the article was an attempt to smear Ed, the Labour Party, and thus to further influence the outcome of the 2015 Election. The DM should stop hiding behind its dignity an admit that fact.

[failedagain]

Yes, Emmie, as your Google search shows, a lot of people did express satisfaction at the death of the person they held responsible for their personal suffering from the 1980s onwards. That has no bearing on the topic of press standards.

Where's the evidence of your other claim, "didn't some papers have disgraceful headlines on the death of Mrs T"?

[emmie]

really gromit, you would defend them to the death for reasons totally unknown, he is a man who wanted to get the job, did so, has been hanging on with fingertips since doing so, is often rubbished by his own party, let alone DC in Parliamentary question time, wants to bring socialism back to Britain, heaven help us with him in charge.