Reblogged from Vox Political:
It was a virtuoso performance, and one that
earned Mehdi Hasan congratulations from Vox Political, just as soon as
I could get to a keyboard.
For those who missed it, the panel on BBC Question Time was
discussing the Daily Mail‘s veiled attack on Ed Miliband, which cast
suspicion on the Labour leader’s motives by questioning those of his late
father. It’s about the lowest kind of attack a newspaper could possibly launch –
the kind that one might have expected from the News of the World in its
latter days.
The piece in question was headlined The man who hated Britain and
referred to Ralph Miliband’s “evil legacy”.
Mehdi Hasan, political editor of the Huffington Post‘s UK edition,
tussled with Quentin Letts, a political sketch-writer for the Mail – winning the
argument (and thunderous applause) with the following:
“Let me ask you a question,” he said. “When you talk about ‘Who hates
Britain’ or ‘Who has an evil legacy’, who do you think has an evil legacy? A man
who sucked up to the Nazis, who made friends with Joseph Goebbels and praised
Hitler in the run-up to World War II – the owner and founder of the Daily
Mail, Lord Rothermere – or a man who served in the Royal Navy, risked his
life for his adopted homeland – Ralph Miliband. Who do you think hated Britain
more?
“And this isn’t just about Ralph Miliband actually, because this has actually
opened up a whole debate about the Daily Mail – if you want to talk
about who hates Britain.
“This is a paper that, in recent years, said that there was nothing natural
about the death of the gay pop star Stephen Gately, who said that the French
people should vote for Marine Le Pen and the National Front, who attacked Danny
Boyle for having a mixed race couple in his Olympics opening ceremony, who
called Mo Farah “a plastic Brit”.
“So let’s have the debate about ‘Who hates Britain more’, because it isn’t a
dead Jewish refugee from Belgium who served in the Royal Navy, it’s the
immigrant-bashing, woman-hating, Muslim-smearing, NHS-undermining, gay-baiting
Daily Mail.”
It did my heart a lot of good, typing that up - not just because of the
Mail-bashing at its centre but because it was a speech that brings a
few other groups together. Here was a Muslim praising the character of a Jew
(for all those out there who think that adherents of Islam have nothing but hate
to offer the rest of the world). He was also speaking up for homosexuals, mixed
race couples, immigrants, women, the health service and anyone who opposes
political extremism – especially of the right-wing variety.
Apart from the very last group, none of these include yr obdt srvt in their
number, but I don’t think I’m alone in believing that anyone who agrees it is
right to fight prejudice would support Mehdi’s opinion.
It seems the powers-that-be at the newspaper in question were listening
carefully, and were keen to enter the next stage of the debate about the
Daily Mail – by demonstrating just how much further they were prepared
to debase themselves, just to smear the reputation of anybody who dared to stand
up to them.
It seems clear that somebody in a high-ranking position at the Daily
Mail went to their files and dug out a letter Mehdi had written in 2010,
applying to become a writer for the newspaper. That letter then mysteriously
made its way to those in charge of the Guido Fawkes blog, where it was published
in full. It seems the intention was to prove that Mehdi was a hypocrite –
how could this man apply for work at the Mail at one point, and then
attack it so viciously only a few short years later?
Silly, silly mistake.
It seems that they didn’t read the letter very well at all.
“I am on the left of the political spectrum, and disagree with the
Mail’s editorial line on a range of issues,” Mehdi2010 wrote.
“I could be a fresh and passionate, not to mention polemical and contrarian,
voice on the comment and feature pages.”
In case the editors and proprietors of the Daily Mail are reading
this: You seem to have mislaid your lexicons. A polemic is a passionate
argument, against an established viewpoint (such as, perhaps, that put
forward by yourselves) – and a contrarian is a person who always takes
an opposing side.
Mehdi’s application letter was saying that he did not agree with the
Daily Mail‘s opinions but he admired the forthright way it stood behind
them and believed the paper would be strengthened by contributions from a writer
with a different point of view to put forward.
This practice is not alien to the Daily Mail. One
of the very earliest Vox Political articles praised the Mail for
printing a piece by a columnist called Sonia Poulton, attacking the Coalition
government’s treatment of the disabled in direct opposition to the paper’s
established skivers/scroungers/shirkers rhetoric.
So it seems that, by ensuring that all journalists working in the UK now know
that their confidential correspondence is likely to become public property the
instant they upset the Mail‘s proprietors, by overreacting to fair,
balanced and reasonable criticism of an extremely unreasonable article published
in that newspaper, and by doing all this in defence of a piece intended to
undermine support for one of Britain’s largest political parties – in line with
its support for the most right-wing government in recent UK history, the
Daily Mail has managed to destroy its own credibility (such as it was),
render itself a no-go area for reputable journalists, and tarnish its readership
by guilt-through-association.
Meanwhile, it has already boosted public support for Labour and the leader it
hoped to harm and, if there is any justice, the current attack on Mehdi Hasan
should bolster his career considerably as well.
That’s what happens when people who think a little too much of themselves
overreact to criticism.
Daily Mail? It might as well be called the Daily
Flail.