Mail Mosley Nazi Hypocrisy

“We do not maintain, like the jealous God of Deuteronomy, that the iniquity of the fathers should be visited on the sons” thundered Daily Mail Comment, the authentic voice of the paper’s legendarily foul mouthed editor Paul Dacre, as it strove to defend itself against condemnation of its smear-laden hatchet job on Ralph Miliband. Then, the sentiment provoked accusations of anti-Semitism. Now, it embarrasses the Mail yet again.

What's f***ing wrong with facing both ways on fascism, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

That is because Dacre has ordered a series of hatchet jobs on anyone who has had the temerity to support properly independent press regulation. This has already descended into forthright dishonesty, when Byline Media was maliciously accused of being funded by campaigning group Hacked Off - twice. Today, Richard Pendlebury again defames Byline, telling of “an obscure news website with links to the Hacked Off pressure group”.

But the main thrust of his second pile of steaming bullpucky is not only to claim erroneously that there is a plot to “impose” independent press regulator IMPRESS on the press establishment (compulsion is not the name of the game, and never was with Leveson), but also to undermine press regulation reform by going after Max Mosley, whom Dacre despises because he is prepared to fight back against the Mail.

Being seen with Hitler is bad, or maybe not

Thus it is that we arrive at the headline “A bloody brawl at his Jew-hating father's march, and troubling doubts about Max Mosley's recollections”, and seasoned Mail watchers may already have noticed that the Dacre doggies are on shaky ground. Pendlebury takes as his chosen text Mosley’s autobiography, and immediately goes all Godwin on us.

“There is, of course, Mosley’s upbringing; a childhood of immense privilege skewed by the fact his baronet father was Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). His mother - the former Diana Mitford - was another aristocratic Nazi cheerleader who counted Adolf Hitler as a friend … The Fuhrer was in attendance when the Mosleys married in the home of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels”.

The Mail backed the man whose memory they are now trashing

Visiting the iniquities of the fathers on the sons, much? Is there anything of even moderate significance here? Well, there is one hook on which Pendlebury hangs his smear: Mosley’s account of his arrest at one of his father’s gatherings in 1962 and subsequent acquittal in court has been disputed by someone else who was there. That’s it. There is one person who disagrees with Max Mosley’s recollection of an event 54 years ago.

The rest is smear and innuendo. And it gets worse: the Daily Mail is the last newspaper to call “Fascist sympathiser” and “Jew-hater” on anyone else. As to being in the presence of Hitler, that privilege was also extended to the then current Lord Rothermere, owner of, er, the Daily Mail. Rothermere was a great supporter of the Third Reich, infamously penning “Hurrah for the Blackshirts”, in praise of a bloke called, er, Oswald Mosley.

Nobody does rank hypocrisy quite like the Daily Mail. That’s in addition to the defamation, smears, and faux righteousness. Just so Dacre can carry on his vindictive bullying.