When Harold Wilson was Labour leader the gutter press purported to believe that he was a dangerous radical and probably a Russian spy. They had no evidence for either assertion but that scarcely slowed them down.
Even the inoffensive Miliband was labelled “Red Ed” by the Sun. I think most Socialists considered that if that was what they thought of as “a red”, heaven help them if they ever come across a real Marxist.
This infamous tradition has been continued with Jeremy Corbyn being accused of being everything from a Trot to a Stalinist with a ludicrous accusation of anti-semitism resulting for his principled support for the Palestinian cause.
To watch the TV or read the papers you would imagine that there was no problem of racism in the Tory Party, UKIP or the DUP. Again the facts don’t impinge.
The latest piece of nonsense is the slandering of the left Labour group Momentum by Sajid Javid who referred to them as ‘neo-fascists’.Did he have any evidence for this? None was presented. He proved it by asserting it.
Do the Daily Mail really genuinely believe this to be true? Surely if they did they would follow their traditional attitude towards fascism and support Momentum. That would be a sight to see. “Hurrah for Momentum – the heirs of Oswald Mosley”.
I think voters might conclude that a Labour Party which does not earn the hatred of the gutter press is probably doing something wrong. The consistently ludicrous nature of the claims, the fact that the TV and the press produce nothing which could be called evidence, means that this hate campaign is doomed to failure.
Socialists fight for the many, not the few. The millionaire press will never support that objective.
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