Harmsworth a chip of the old fascist block?

None of us are responsible for our parents, and that includes Ed Milliband, but that never stops us from being proud or ashamed of our family as the case may be. At the same time, politicians who frequently refer to parents in the public arena can't really whine too much when the same parent is criticised by political opponents. Look, let's be honest here, let's leave aside Ed Milliband's political aspirations for a moment and just consider this. Any one of us might well be proud to have had a dad who  escaped the Nazis after various adventures, arrives in this country as a young penniless refugee, learns English, spends three years in the wartime navy, goes on to become a leading academic and retains a lifelong commitment to socialism. On the other hand if we were standing in the shoes of Daily Mail owner Jonathan Harmsworth (Viscount Rothmere to you), how would we feel about having a great grandfather who was a personal friend of Hitler and Mussolini and who used the paper he owned to sing the praises of Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts? I hold little brief for Ed Milliband but the pondlife who own the Mail are in no position to slag off anybody's  ancestors.