Come on you Daily Mail supporters

If you're spoiling for a fight, bluebell, count me out.

Not spoiling for a fight at all -Just making an obvious point - there's a group of gransnetters who in the past have always defended the Daily Mail- you're all just being quiet at the moment, that's all!! We on the left are just do grateful for the contribution the DM is making to the case for proper press regulation and demonstrating what the right being are really like!! BTW was there a Tory party conference this week?

You're right Bluebell the Mail's behaviour was in very poor taste - almost reminiscent of that on GN when Baroness Thatcher died.

Thatcher should have been treated as an old woman, an individual, who had died and was being mourned by her family, in private. As a national leader she was a disgrace, and deserved much of the criticism handed out, but not the 'glad she's dead' comments.

Ralph Milliband was not in the publc eye. Few had even heard of him before the Daily Mail chose to libel him, claiming today that it was their 'interpretation' of his values and political views that led them to (wrongly) conclude that he hated this country. He did help to defend this country against the Nazis at the end of the war.

I'm glad to hear the DM has apologised for sending a journalist to barge in on the private memorial service of Milliband's uncle, who was not in the public eye, either. Simply to try and get a soundbite to justify publishing more rubbish.

Dirty journalism has backfired on the DM this week. They've probably demolished the argument against implementing all of Levenson's recommendations because of their unethical, fabricated reporting that so many have been sick of for far too long.

I agree whenim64 Thatcher should not have had the funeral accorded to her, I abhorred her politics, but how any one could have continued to support her after she sheltered the mass murderer Pinochet and blocked his extradition is beyond comprehension

Ralph Milliband stood for freedom for the masses, and while some may not have agreed with his politics, to libel him by saying he hated Britain is a disgrace .... he fought the Nazis... Viscount Rothermere supported them !!!

Question Time should be lively tonight!

Sel There is no comparison of a national newspaper's false reporting and intrusive behaviour at a private and sad even and a bunch of grannies commenting on the death of a highly controversial and contentious ex-Prime Minister. Perhaps we could do with a wooden spoon emoticon.

It was! Was Quentin Letts supposed to be on? I never saw his name in the paper. That couldn't have just been coincidence.
I like reading the Huffington Post, and now I know why.

event even.

Quentin Letts was probably the least argumentative DM columnist they could field at short notice. Huff Post is always good for analysis, and he got a lot of applause for his comments about the DM. Yvette Cooper could have said much more, especally when Quentin Letts referred to her 'beloved.' I'd have wiped the floor with him if he'd made that comment to me!

I had gone off to bed with a book and missed QT. The first thing my husband said when he brought me a cup of tea this morning, was to watch it on catch up today. I will do this whilst doing a bit of my ironing. I have been reading the DM on line recently, for fun really. It's like being in a horror fantasy world, with no Good People who are female, black, poor, unemployed, sick, old, young, etc.
I wonder if a boycott of their on line paper would impact on editorial policy. I have read it's the most read on line newspaper, so their advertising income would take a real hit wouldn't it.

I missed QT as well, so I will also be watching on catch-up. I know I should stop reading the DM on line, but I really do want to know what the bar stewards are up to!

I bought the Daily Express today. Not much better than DM, is it.
Or maybe I am prejudiced ever since they diddled me out of a £10 Cruise some years ago and for which I have never forgiven them!!!

Not defending or supporting the D.M, but surely it has achieved its objective, got people talking abour, and possibly buying the newspaper in order to see for themselves exactly what was written. Don't agree with the way it has been done, but then I don't agree with a lot of things in life, can't stop them happening though.

blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2013/10/the-daily-mail-is-disreputable-twisted-tendentious-and-malignant-thank-heavens-for-that/. A good, uncomfortable article.

Yes, indeed! Thanks, thatbags.

Did they plan to upstage the Tory conference with a story about the DM? Possibly not.

The Metro distributed free all over the place is an arm of the DM too and just as much a pernicious rag.

I watched QT at my sons last night, Mehdi Hasan certainly gave Quentin Letts a lesson in arguing your point and when in a whole stop digging. I fear it fell on deaf ears however. Sometimes what is moraly wrong cannot be hijacked by the argument of 'in the public interest'. Whichever way it is packaged what the DM wrote in headline and or editorial was wrong therefore indefencible. They should stop trying to come up with spurious arguments as to why they justify their actions as they have lost credibility and no one is listening now.

The Spectator article is not about justifying disreputable, twisted, tendentious, malignant articles in the DM. That should be clear from the title, not to mention the contents of the article. It is about defending freedom of the press. Hacked Off appears not to understand how valuable a thing this is to a democratic society, regardless of whether on agrees with which ever 'side' or publication is publishing disreputable, twisted, tendentious and malignant articles which, in themselves, cannot be justified.

The argument for freedom of the press (and freedom of speech/expression generally) would apply if it had been one of the politically left-wing papers that had broken the rules of decency.

Beats me why people don't understand this. Who was it who said "I disagree with what you say and how you say it but I will defend to the death your right to do so"? Or words to that effect.

'one agrees'

Voltaire, I think!

Yes. And I doubt whether all the moral indignation in the world will put the DM out of business overnight, or any time soon, as some seem to be expecting!

Good article, thanks bags.