Saturday 12 October 2013

Daily Mail Editor Defends Miliband Article

PAUL Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, has today in The Guardian defended his paper over a feature which called Ralph Miliband, the Labour leader's father, 'the man who hated Britain'.  Mr. Dacre, referring to Ed Miliband's speech to the Labour Party conference on the 24th, September, said that the paper (the Daily Mail) was 'deeply concerned that in 2013, after all the failures of socialism in the 20th Century, the leader of the Labour Party was announcing its return, complete with land seizures and price fixing'.

Dacre then went on to consider the article more fully writing that the 'Journalist Geoffrey Levy's 1 October article examined the views of Ralph Miliband - who died in 1994 - "over his lifetime, not just as a 17-year-old youth as has been alleged by our critics".'  Dacre continued to argue that 'The picture that emerged was of a man who gave unqualified support to Russian totalitarianism until the mid-50s, who loathed the market economy, was in favour of a workers' revolution, denigrated British traditions and institutions such as the Royal Family, the church and the Army and was overtly dismissive of western democracy.'
 
In actual fact price fixing is a feature of a corporate state not just of state socialism.  In 1963, in a Spain ruled over by General Franco the price of an ordinary loaf all over the country was held at 3pts,30centimos (less than 3p). Under the corporate state of Franco's Spain we could enjoy being paid a weekly wage of 'double bubble' (double pay) twice a year enforced on the bosses by the government to commemorate the 'liberation' of Spain by Franco's forces every July, and in the week before Christmas to commemorate the birth of Christ.

Ed. Milliband and the Labour Party are proposing to freeze energy prices if they come to power in 2015, and to raise the minimum wage - both features of a corporate state. But what has been catching the headlines is the proposal on energy prices:

With Labour saying it would freeze gas and electricity bills for every home and business in the UK for 20 months if it wins the 2015 election, this was broadly welcomed by the unions and some on the left. 

In a way this shows that some on the left have not yet grasped the nature of what has been happening in the last few decades.  Some like Mr Crow of the RMT union and no2EU campaign seem to be deluding themselves, thinking that there can be a return to something like a regime of the mid-20th century.

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