'Hurrah for the Blackshirts!" was the headline with which one British newspaper greeted the formation of Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists in 1934. That newspaper was the Daily Mail.
This past week the Mail has been living up to its heritage with a spate of scare-mongering articles on the London bombings. Last Thursday the International Marxist Group was privileged to be the object of an attack by this reactionary rag, under the banner headline *Bombs Hunt for Marxists." This was followed on Friday with a rag-bag of lying slanders, claiming, among other absurdities, that the Fourth International had prepared a secret *Plan X' which was "to be used to begin a reign of terror' involving 'planting bombs in cinemas, department stores, schools, public transport and govemment offices.' REACTIONARY POLITICS Whatever may have changed about the Mail over the years, its political outlook has remained the same. The horror stories with which it entertains its readers today are cut from exactly the same cloth as the accounts of left-wing 'atrocities that appeared regularly on its front pages during the Spanish Civil War. Always a loyal supporter of reaction, the Mail was a staunch propagandist for Franco and fascism in the 30s, and provides the same services for the Special Branch today. Reactionary politics flow in the veins of the Rothermere family, owners of the vast newspaper empire which includes the Daily Mail. The first Viscount Rothermere was an enthusiastic supporter of Mussolini. He felt, however, that Mussolini's methods of one-man rule might be a bit drastic here: instead he proposed that Britain should be run by a three-man committee with dictatorial powers, and free from Parliamentary control. LETTERS TO HITLER He backed Mosley's fascists from the first, placing his press solidly behind them. Later on he became disillusioned with Mosley, but found a new hero in ... Adolf Hitler. He visited Germany for talks with Nazi leaders, and conducted a long personal correspondence with Hitler.
This was reflected in Rothermere's newspapers The Daily Mail had no interest in certain horrors and atrocities. In July 1933 the Mail reported that Nazi terror 'consists merely of a few isolated acts of violence such as are inevitable among a nation half as big again as ours." The Nazis' anti-semitism also came in for a whitewash, the Mail explaining in the following terms: Israelites of international attachments were insinuating themselves into key positions in the German administrative machine ... it is from such abuses that Hitler has freed Germany?
IMMENSE EMPIRE The Daily Mail's staunch defence of capitalism is not completely unselfish. The Mail is partand-parcel of an immense financial empire, controlled - and largely owned - by the present day descendants of the forthright first Viscount Rothermere.
At the pinnacle is the Daily Mail and General Trust, whose chairman is the second Viscount Rothermere, and on whose board sits the heir to the Rothermere fortune, the Honourable Vere Harmsworth, along with his cousin, Sir Geoffrey Harmsworth.
This company owns a majority of the shares of the Associated Newspaper Group, the centrepiece of the Rothermere empire. This colossus owns and publishes two national daily papers -Viscount Rothermere drops in for a fireside chat with Nazi boss Hermann Goering, December 1934 the Daily Mail and the Evening News - some 38 provincial newspapers, and Weekend ma gazine.
It controls a number of provincial dailies: the Hull Daily Mail, the Stoke-on-Trent Evening Sentinel, the Derby Evening Telegraph, and the Leicester Mercury.
Its financial interests extend throughout the field of publishing and communications, and into market research, public entertainment, road transport, and shipping. It owns the Southern Television network jointly with the gigantic Rank Corporation, has its finger in the pie of commercial radio, and has interests in Australian television. It also owns an important slice of a major Canadian papermaking and mining concern.
A LOT TO DEFEND The Chairman of Associated Newspapers is Vere Harmsworth, and his father, Viscount Rothermere, is its President. Until recently the vice-chairman was Sir Neill Cooper-Key, Rothermere's son-in-law and, from 1945-1970 Tory MP for Hastings. Cooper-Key also served as the Rothermere man on the Southern Television board and was chairman of the company which ran Rothermere transport interests.
The total worth of the Rothermere empire is some where in the vicinity of £30 million. It exercises a powerful influence over the com munications media of the country, and in many provincial centres has a total stranglehold over the local press.
There is little wonder that the various tentacles of this empire - such as the Daily Mail - align themselves so decisively with the forces of order.' Nor should we be surprised at the fact that their methods have so often been ruthless: they have a lot to defend. Brian Slocock U SOLIDARITY