Was (IMHO liar) Ed Miliband’s father a coward?

I feel uncomfortable writing critically about someone who is dead and cannot defend himself. But if Ed Miliband is going to constantly witter on about what a great man his father was to burnish his own moral and political credentials, we have the right to look at the facts and even question Ed�Miliband’s version of events.

After all, it was Ed Miliband’s mentor, the useless Gordon Brown, who constantly claimed that his father was his “moral compass”. If Brown’s father was a “moral compass” then that compass must have been broken as Brown was an economically-illiterate, financially-incontinent recidivist liar who (with the help of Ed Balls and Ed Miliband) wasted about �1.5trn of our money and virtually bankrupted Britain

Ed Miliband has often�boasted about�what a great man his�father Ralph (originally named Adolphe) was�in speeches to try to get sympathy and admiration from his audience. But when last Saturday’s Daily Mail wrote an article suggesting that Miliband�Pater�may have actually�been a rather nasty piece of work, Miliband was suddenly furious that anyone dare look at his father’s words and actions.

When it comes to�his father, Ed Miliband wants to play “heads I win, tails you lose” -�he wants to be able to exploit his version of his father’s history to boost his own lousy political career.

But apparently Ed Miliband considers it unacceptable for anyone else to examine what Miliband Pater was really like.

Here’s a laughably sycophantic piece from the Guardian about Miliband’s father and grandfather: “Yet, in May 1940, the ominous world situation he enjoyed discussing with his fellow teenage activists became an indisputable reality. On the 10th, the Germans invaded Belgium. By the 16th, they had almost reached Brussels. The Milibands packed and hurried to one of the city’s stations, intending to get to Paris (most of France had not yet fallen) and take refuge with relatives there. But the station was in chaos: the Germans had cut off the Brussels-Paris railway line. After lingering at the station into the evening, the Milibands gave up and went home. Back in their flat, Ralph heard a radio announcement that all boys of his age – he was now 16 – were to be conscripted into the Belgian army, currently being shot to pieces a few miles away. This was not his idea of useful political sacrifice; he decided he would walk to France. After a frantic family debate, the plan was amended: Ralph and his father would walk to the Channel instead, a distance of more than 60 miles, while the rest of the family stayed in Brussels and looked for another way out.

For the next two days and nights, Ralph and his father walked west through the flat countryside. At Ostend, they talked their way on to the last boat to England. Once they were at sea, they asked for refugee status. It was granted. The ship docked at Dover. From there they travelled to London”.

But how should we interpret this? Were Miliband’s grandfather and father courageous escapees who just managed to leave Belgium for Britain before the Nazis caught them? Or were they cowards, running off to save their own skins and leaving�Ralph Miliband’s mother and younger sister to the mercy of the Germans and possibly�the concentration camps?

Who knows? These were difficult times and my father and uncle had to make a similar decision. But my father and uncle travelled thousands of miles to escape to Britain. Ed Miliband’s grandfather and father only had to go�60 miles to reach the coast and then a boat to Britain. Could they not have taken�Ralph Miliband’s�mother and sister with them?

In fact, thanks to a courageous farmer (and no thanks to Miliband’s father and grandfather)�Ralph Miliband’s mother and younger sister�did manage to survive the war and evade being sent to a concentration camp.

Ed Miliband has also made much of the fact that his father Ralph Miliband served for 3 years in the Belgian section of the Royal Navy. Did he volunteer or was he called up? And if he hadn’t volunteered, would he have been called up anyway? Who knows? We have Ed Miliband’s version of events. But let’s look at some “highlights” of Ed Miliband’s rise to political power.

Miliband�must have�lied about supposed�Global Warming�when (as Energy Secretary) bringing in his economically disastrous 2008 Climate Change Act as by then he�would have known that the earth’s temperature had not�risen since 1999.� I don’t remember him opposing�Blair’s illegal invasion of Iraq�even though, as a member of Labour’s inner circle, he must have suspected (or even known) that the dodgy dossier was a pack of lies. But standing up for the truth as Foreign Secretary Robin Cook did would not have been so good for Ed Miliband’s career. And�Ed Miliband�has been more than economical with the truth when talking about the record of the (for us disastrous) Blair/Brown government of which he was an important part. So why should we believe anything he says now about his father or anything else?

As for Ed Miliband’s histrionic outrage over the Daily Mail criticising his father, I think most people would agree that if a politician wants their family to be off limits for the press, then they should not self-servingly try to exploit their family to promote their own grubby political careers.