Who hates Britain?

[NormanH]

Of course it all  depends what you mean by 'hate' and what you mean by 'Britain' as Dr Joad might have said, but if one takes 'Britain' to represent certain values of decency, respect,  tolerance  and the right to express alternative views without being smeared unfairly after death it is clear where the hatred lies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9JIvARoGbS4&html5=1#t=27

For a less impassioned view:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/03/ralph-miliband-british-values-daily-mail

[Quillan]

Do people actually take either the Guardian or the DM seriously anyway, they both write a load of tosh (to be fair most newspapers do these days) but at opposite ends of the spectrum. If you want a real god laugh try The Mirror and The Express.

I can see where you are going Norman, not a place that I would like to go and I don't think it fair to put the post on this forum really, it needs to be on a political orientated forum really.

Still if the DM has stepped out of line and printed lies I am sure Wallace will be seeing them in court and collect a substantial sum of money.

[Gardian]

[quote user="Quillan"]I don't think it fair to put the post on this forum really, it needs to be on a political orientated forum really.
[/quote]

Why not?  Norman put it in 'Other Topics'.

I've no special brief for Miliband, but this just seemed to me to be unnecessary, irrelevent to current Politics, quite probably inaccurate and likely to generate an equal and opposite reaction amongst the British public to that which was intended. 

[Jazzer]

I do not know a lot about Ralph Miliband,but I think I would trust him more for fighting for Britain, including fighting in the Normandy landings than a newspaper whose owner toadied up to Hitler,with whom he was proud to be photographed with, and the Mail itself supported Mosley and the Blackshirts in the 30's. I think they should apologise for their own background before attacking someone else.

[Quillan]

I just think it strange that normally when papers make these claims and they are untrue people are talking to a lawyer straight away which results in the paper not being able to print anything until it all goes to court.

[Clarkkent]

It is nearly sixty years since McCarthyism was discredited in the United States. What does the Daily Mail think that it will achieve by resurrecting it in Britain?

[NormanH]

[quote user="Quillan"]I just think it strange that normally when papers make these claims and they are untrue people are talking to a lawyer straight away which results in the paper not being able to print anything until it all goes to court.

[/quote]

What claims? a slur (the Daily Mail's cowardly way of going about things) is not an accusation of something illegal  and in any case the bloke is dead, so he would have a hard time getting in touch with a lawyer.[:D]

The question I am interested in is whether the idea of 'Britain' or 'British values' must include a particular party line, or whether the whole idea is that thought is free, and open discussion of a range of views is to be defended as being the real tradition, as I believe.

[Hoddy]

I think you are right to separate the two things in this way. Does the fact that I complain about the actions of the government make me less of a lover of the country than someone who doesn't complain at all.

There are some very nasty connotations if one goes down that road. I remember the phrase 'the enemy within' being used about people who I regarded as being truly as British as any of us. It seems to me to be part of the national character complain and to celebrate the fact that we are free to do so.

Hoddy

[Rabbie]

The law of libel does not apply to dead people so the DM can say what it likes about EM's father without risk of being sued.

However it has managed to reduce the number of column inches given to reporting the Conservative Conference. Sometime you wonder whose side the DM is really on.

[chessie]

Several things to bear in mind here.   Firstly, it was Milliband Jnr who kept referring to the influence his father had on his views and his thinking.    As Milliband is a potential PM of the UK then it is only right the voters are aware of the influences and ideas which will shape whatever decisions Milliband will have to make.

If Milliband Jnr had not kept referring to his father, then there would not have been an increasing wish to know more about this 'great influence' on the life of Milliband Jnr.

Regardless of whether Milliband Snr 'fought' for the UK in the war - it was more that he was fighting for his own country, along with the Italians, and French, and Polish etc who were in the UK and fighting at the same time.    I doubt whether they were fighting for the 'love' of the UK - but to free their own countries.

Having seen one of Milliband Snrs lectures then I must say that I found his views very left-wing, rather suspect - and not those of a so-called  patriot.    The Home Office at the time Millband Grand Snr applied for refugee admission were extremely unhappy and suspicious about the Millibands.  

If Milliband Jnr hadn't played on the 'my father - my greatest influence' then maybe there wouldn't have been a desire to just check out the guy and see exactly what was so inspiring about his thoughts and ideology.    Milliband Jnr is now throwing his toys out of pram, putting even more pressure on Levenson to 'control' the press - but he brought it all on himself, and I have absolutely no sympathy for him.

This is the man who leads a party, which is supposed to represent the working-class but doesn't, and for whom the chattering class of Islington, and the social workers, and all the other do-goodie little lefties cheered and triumphed and behaved disgracefully when Baroness Thatcher died.   For that, if for no other reason, I think it only right that Milliband Jnr's parental influences are held up to the light and scrutinised.

As for 'Britishness' - I would suggest that watching Prof Brian Cox as he celebrates all the great British inventions that we have contributed to the world, and which makes this world a better (?) place - from the telegraph to the world-wide web;  look at Magna Carta, our Bill of Rights - both of which formed the basis of the American Constitution.   Our legal system copied around the world.  Our democracy - first in the World.   I think Britishness is a sense of fair play, and expect to be treated fairly by other people - but which has now been corrupted by the Europeanisation of our politics with the corruption, and lying, and double-dealing that seems to have arrived with the Common Market/EEC and now the wonderful European Union - harmonise everything.

Chessie

[woolybanana]

Well dne Chessie, and so say most of us.

[woolybanana]

Let's blame Auntie. Mind you, the writer might have a point.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10357915/The-BBC-has-come-to-loathe-those-it-serves.html