I think the Daily Mail is frankly wrong to take a solitary comment of a 17 year old boy, who later became Ed's dad, and declare that he hated Britain, when that same man also fought the Nazis in our navy. I may strongly disagree with Ralph Miliband's Marxist views but there is no question he was a patriot, who believed also in free speech. The Mail is wrong to describe Ralph Miliband as a man who hated Britain. As Tim Montgomerie writes in the Times today "wanting to change Britain does not mean you hate it."
My family emigrated to this country and then served our country in the world wars. Some of the family felt they had no option but to change their name - hence why I have some cousins called Tunstall. My grandparents carried on with a Germanic sounding name. It cannot have been easy for them, albeit my grandfather served 5 years in the war for us in India and Asia, and my great uncle tragically died on the beaches at Dunkirk - killed by the Germans two weeks after his wedding.
For my part I have sympathy for Ed. Deciding to serve your community as a councillor or as a Member of Parliament is a great honour, and I know of no elected member of any office, from any party, who does not do it unless they want to make their area a better place; but you open yourself up to criticism and comment of all sorts. To an extent that goes with the territory, albeit I still find the vitriol by some hard to comprehend. I wish some would pause before the vitriol. On this issue twitter is the worst of anonymous abusers.
Criticise me for the decisions I make as your representative, whether that is my votes on issues of conscience like same sex marriage, or my views on assisted suicide law change or women Bishops (I am in favour of all 3) or the policies of the coalition government (I think we have got about 90% of the horrendously difficult judgment calls in these tough times right over the last 3 years, and fully accept that not all decisions were perfect - no government ever is) but do not bring families or personal attack into it. That is my broad rule. I could comment that Labour criticise the conservative ministers repeatedly for a "privileged" background, and the glee at Mrs Thatcher's death was in poor taste, but perhaps we have all got something to learn from the events of this last year.
So I support Ed's upset with the Mail and have written to him a short letter of support. The response is not to say that all free press is bad. That is not what Ralph Miliband would have wanted. The right
approach is for a free press to round on the Mail, and all of us to try and be a bit less personal in our attacks.
