From what I heard today, Ed Miliband’s dad was an academic critical of institutions like the monarchy and army. I too am critical of such institutions, or at least I am aware of the criticisms of them. That does not mean that I hate my country. To be critical of something surely implies one seeks to improve it: criticism is, or can be, a form of love, like a parent criticises a child. Thus I am beside myself with fury at the daily mail’s unthinking attack on Ralph miliband. he may have been a leftwing academic, but that does not mean he is a traitor, and it does not give any mindless tabloid hack any right to brand him as such. The mail’s article, despite it’s laughable classical allusions, is nothing more than the puerile ramblings of a gutter journalist, an ad hominen attack on a dead academic whose son happens to be the leader of the opposition. To seek to discredit the son by besmirching the father is frankly beyond the pale; It is an insult to journalism, and for the editor of the Mail to appear on Newsnight this evening to defend such an abomination fills me with disgust for the rag he calls a newspaper.