ED Miliband is calling on the owners of the Daily Mail to mount an urgent inquiry into the "culture and practices" of their newspapers after a reporter turned up uninvited at a private family memorial service.
'; document.write(s); return; } window.google_adnum = window.google_adnum || null; google_ad_client = "ca-pub-9024837700129787"; google_ad_output = "js"; google_ad_type = "text"; google_ad_channel = '9868211012,3764294476'; google_max_num_ads = '2'; google_skip = window.google_adnum; /* insert this snippet for each ad call */The editor of the Mail on Sunday - the Daily Mail's sister title - apologised unreservedly after one of his paper's reporters was said to have tried to question relatives of the Labour leader who were attending the service held yesterday for his late uncle.
Geordie Greig said that two journalists on the paper had been suspended pending a full investigation into what he said was "a terrible lapse of judgment".
Labour said the apology was "an important step" but insisted there was a need for a wider inquiry at the newspaper group in the wake of the continuing row over the Daily Mail's denunciation of Mr Miliband's late father, the Marxist intellectual Ralph Miliband, as a man "who hated Britain".
The latest twist follows the disclosure that a Mail on Sunday journalist found her way into the memorial service for Mr Miliband's late uncle, Professor Harry Keen, being held on the 29th floor of Guy's Hospital in central London.
Labour sources said that at the end of the service, Prof Keen's daughter was approached by a woman who shook her hand and offered her condolences, before introducing herself as a reporter from the paper.
The reporter asked whether the daughter wished to comment on the Daily Mail article about Mr Miliband senior and was told "no comment".
When the reporter asked again, she was given the same answer, at which point she left.
In a letter to Lord Rothermere, the chairman of Daily Mail and General Trust, Mr Miliband said his wider family, who were not in public life, had been "understandably appalled and shocked" by what had happened.
He said the paper's actions crossed "a line of common decency" and suggested they were "a symptom of the culture and practices" of both the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday.
"There are many decent people working at those newspapers and I know that many of them will be disgusted by this latest episode," he wrote.
"But they will also recognise that what has happened to my family has happened to many others."
He said that he saw no purpose in referring the matter to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) "because it is widely discredited".
"Instead, I am writing to you as the owners of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday because I believe it is long overdue that you reflect on the culture of your newspapers," he wrote.
"You should conduct your own swift investigation into who was responsible at a senior level for this latest episode and also who is responsible for the culture and practices of these newspapers which jar so badly with the values of your readers.
"There are bigger issues for the people of Britain in the midst of the worst cost of living crisis for a century than intrusion into the life of my family.
"But the reaction of many people to the Daily Mail's attacks on my father this week demonstrates that the way your newspapers have behaved does not reflect the real character of our country.
"It is now your responsibility to respond."
In a statement, Mr Greig said the decision to send a reporter to the service had been taken without his knowledge and represented a "deplorable intrusion" at a private event.
"I unreservedly apologise for a reporter intruding into a private memorial service for a relative of Ed Miliband," he said.
"I would further like to apologise to members of the family and friends attending the service for this deplorable intrusion.
"I have already spoken personally to Ed Miliband and expressed my regret that such a terrible lapse of judgment should have taken place.
"It is completely contrary to the values and editorial standards of The Mail on Sunday."
The chair of the PCC, Lord Hunt of Wirral, said he was "deeply concerned" about what had happened and that the commission would continue to monitor the situation closely.
"We would, of course, take forward a complaint from the Miliband family, should we receive one," he said.
Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg launched an outspoken attack on the Daily Mail, accusing the paper of "overflowing with bile" about modern Britain, and said Mr Miliband's response was "quite understandable".
"When I heard the Daily Mail accusing someone of saying that they didn't like Britain... I'm not a regular reader of this newspaper but every time I do open it, it just seems to be overflowing with bile about modern Britain," he said on his weekly radio phone-in on LBC 97.3.
"They don't like working mothers, they don't like the BBC, they don't like members of the royal family, they don't like teachers, they don't like the English football team - the list goes on," he said.
"Talk about kettles and pots.
"It seems to me that if anyone excels in denigrating and often vilifying a lot about modern Britain, it's the Daily Mail."
Mr Clegg is the latest senior figure from across the political spectrum to voice concern at the way the Mail portrayed the Labour leader's father, who was a Jewish refugee who fled to Britain to escape the Nazis and served in the Royal Navy in the Second World War.
John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport committee, said he believed the Mail's original article was "somewhat offensive" and the Mail on Sunday's actions were "clearly unacceptable".
He told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that he did not believe the Daily Mail should apologise, but the paper's readership should make up its own mind.
"The Daily Mail is entitled to express a view and it ultimately will be up to the Daily Mail's readers as to whether or not they think it was right to print the piece," he said.
"Obviously Ed Miliband was entitled to respond, which he did very robustly."
He added: "I personally fully understand why somebody should be angry if an attack is made on their father. I thought it was unfair, reading it it didn't seem to me that it really justified that kind of headline.
"But I don't suggest that the Daily Mail shouldn't be allowed to write what it chooses, it was an opinion piece."
The Mail on Sunday's actions were "clearly unacceptable", he said.
"That seems to me to be a very clear breach of the existing PCC code. I think the journalists quite rightly have been suspended."
Mr Whittingdale said under either of the rival systems of press regulation being considered the Daily Mail's article would not have been in breach of the code but the Mail on Sunday's activities would.
"Therefore we do need to get in place a strong regulator as soon as we can which will act against these kinds of abuses," he said.
Press Association
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