Campbell challenges Dacre to debate

[Guest]

Alastair Campbell has set up a petition to challenge Paul Dacre, Editor of the Daily Mail to a televised debate about the attack on Ed Miliband's father and the role of the Daily Mail in the UK’s national debate.

I'm not inviting debate on this here, which is why it is on Platform 3. This is where you can sign the petition, should you so wish :smiley:

https://www.change.org/petitions/debate-with-me-or-a-professional-broadcast-interviewer-on-tv-the-attack-on-ed-miliband-s-father-and-the-role-of-the-daily-mail-in-the-uk-s-national-debate?utm_source=action_alert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=36499&alert_id=BaeZFoCwua_ZnSkECekkQ

[Stillhomewardbound]

This is an entirely unpolitical point, I assure you, but I passed by Carlton Terrace Gardens, off the Mall, today ... Doing some prep for my forthcoming statues walk (see Tourist Booth for details).

Anyway, what is now the official residence there of the Foreign Minister was once the home of Alfred Harmsworth (who was the spiritual founding father of the Daily Mail).

Related to him, I have had a story disappear on me, which says that in the latter stages of his he lapsed into mental decay and took to living in a shed on the top of the house from where he would regularly phone the Daily Mail to complain to an editor who had long since departed. Not recognising his successor he would summarily dismiss him. This was a serial occurence.

Thing is, having read it at some point, I now cannot find a trace if the story online.

Does it ring bells with anyone? Might it apply to his son?

I'm off to peruse my research notes from when I first did the walk, but if anyone can help in the meantime ... :loveblush::winkeye:

[Serial_Apologist]

Campbell for sure as hell is not someone I wish to side with in Ed Milliband's quarrel with The Wail. :steam:

[Zucchini]

Re #2 (shb): I don't think it's a good idea for you to publish a scurrilous story online and then say you can't offer any evidence to support it

[Petrushka]

Disingenuous of Am51 to put this on Platform 3 and claim not to be canvassing views knowing full well that they would come regardless. I did expect certain members to try and bypass the 'no politics' rule on Platform 3.

It hasn't taken long has it? :sadface:

[Mr Pee]

I'm not inviting debate on this here, which is why it is on Platform 3. This is where you can sign the petition, should you so wish :smiley:

This thread should quite clearly be in Politics and Current affairs.

Posting it here is- as usual from you- provocative, and deliberately intended to provoke debate, despite your lame protestations to the contrary.

I can guarantee that if I posted a similar link on Platform 3 to a politically motivated petition you would be among the first to protest that it belonged on P+CA.

[Mr Pee]

Disingenuous of Am51 to put this on Platform 3 and claim not to be canvassing views knowing full well that they would come regardless. I did expect certain members to try and bypass the 'no politics' rule on Platform 3.

It hasn't taken long has it? :sadface:

:ok:

Our posts overlapped; we are in agreement. I trust that FF will move this thread to P&CA as soon as possible.

[Flosshilde]

Disingenuous of Am51 to put this on Platform 3 and claim not to be canvassing views knowing full well that they would come regardless. I did expect certain members to try and bypass the 'no politics' rule on Platform 3.

It hasn't taken long has it? :sadface:

What's 'political' about a muck-raking (not that there is any muck to rake about Ralph Milliband's views) - it's about the Mail's peculiar ideas about 'hating' (or 'loving') Britain - whatever that is. We could have a discussion on patriotism, or what it is about Britain that might cause us to 'love' or 'hate' it, or on what 'Britain' actually is.

[Flosshilde]

a politically motivated petition

Could you explain how this petition is 'politically motivated', rather than a protest against the sewer that calls itself the 'Daily Mail?

[Mr Pee]

What's 'political' about a muck-raking (not that there is any muck to rake about Ralph Milliband's views) - it's about the Mail's peculiar ideas about 'hating' (or 'loving') Britain - whatever that is. We could have a discussion on patriotism, or what it is about Britain that might cause us to 'love' or 'hate' it, or on what 'Britain' actually is.

it didn't take long, did it, for Floss - predictably :yawn:- to leap to Amateur's defence. This thread is clearly political, as the above amply demonstrates.

[Mr Pee]

Could you explain how this petition is 'politically motivated', rather than a protest against the sewer that calls itself the 'Daily Mail?

I thought you said you had me on ignore? :erm:

[MrGongGong]

I thought you said you had me on ignore? :erm:

I think you will find that there might only be one person who does the "ball inside"
"ooooo I'm not your bestest friend anymore" nonsense ..........

[Stillhomewardbound]

Disingenuous of Am51 to put this on Platform 3 and claim not to be canvassing views knowing full well that they would come regardless. I did expect certain members to try and bypass the 'no politics' rule on Platform 3.

It hasn't taken long has it? :sadface:

But you are compounding the issue? If it is in the wrong place then our noble moderators will relocate it.

Was it wrong of me to allude to a post in another, rarely visited, place on here? Not at all.

Meanwhile, I've been accused earlier on of casting 'scurrilous' accusations without basis, whereas I'm actually requesting help in attributing verification to what I believe to be a genuine truth.

It is a matter of record, in any event, that Harmswortt lapsed into pronounced metal and physical dilapidation in his later years.


This 1922 obituary from The Spectator, no less, adds some perspective.

http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/19th-august-1922/5/lord-northcliffe-and-the-times

While here is his entry in the Oxford National Dictionary of Biography:

http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp?articleid=33717&back=

[Bryn]

Disingenuous of Am51 to put this on Platform 3 and claim not to be canvassing views knowing full well that they would come regardless. I did expect certain members to try and bypass the 'no politics' rule on Platform 3.

It hasn't taken long has it? :sadface:

Remind me, what was the name of that puppet Stravinsky based a ballet around? :whistle:

Not, perhaps, the most appropriate nom de plume from which to post such a politically motivated message.

[Petrushka]

Remind me, what was the name of that puppet Stravinsky based a ballet around? :whistle:

Not, perhaps, the most appropriate nom de plume from which to post such a politically motivated message.

:erm: Got no idea what this is about.