Seconds out!

Big row blown up between Ed Milliband and the Daily Mail over an article in the paper which labelled his father "The man who hated Britain".  Milliband has said this is "a lie" and accused the paper of "character assassination" (of his father, and by implication, of him).  So, what are we to make of it all?  Milliband's father was a committed Marxist and his views are a matter of public record.  It's clear he had an intense dislike of the institution of the Monarchy, and of privilege generally and would have welcomed a workers' revolution after the style of the Russian one. But does this justify saying that he "hated" this country?  It is surely just as valid to want to change a country out of love for that country as out of hatred for it.  Given that Milliband has said that his father was an inspiration to him it is clearly perfectly proper, in considering his credentials, to examine what his father believed and stood for, but the headline was intentionally provocative and rather unnecessarily nasty.  So the moral high ground is rather with Milliband, I feel.