‘Independent’ watchdog’s defence of Mosley
THE State-approved Press watchdog has mounted an astonishing defence of Max Mosley after the Daily Mail revealed his thuggish, racist past.
Impress, which is bankrolled by £3.8million of Mosley money via a family trust, was yesterday accused by Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg of being an ‘apologist’ for its benefactor.
The ex-Formula One chief has been widely condemned for refusing to apologise for his vile racist election leaflet in 1961, which said ‘coloured immigrants’ spread ‘terrible diseases like leprosy’.
He was also caught brawling at a ‘Jew baiting’ rally in 1962 where his father, former Blackshirts leader Oswald Mosley, spoke. And in the 1980s, when he was in his 40s, Mr Mosley’s Formula One races in South Africa lent prestige to the apartheid regime.
But Impress chairman Walter Merricks leapt to Mr Mosley’s defence. In a letter, he told members of the ‘independent’ watchdog: ‘Max Mosley has always been open about the fact that he had supported his father in his politics when he was 19 years old. Indeed he wrote about this in his autobiography.’
In fact, Mr Mosley published the racist pamphlet when he was 21 and was 22 at the ‘Jew baiting’ rally. He has insisted he has never been a racist, and says he does not remember the 1961 leaflet. He told his High Court orgy privacy trial in 2008 that it did not exist.
Mr Mosley said his views had changed since the 1960s, adding that any suggestion that he lied in court was ‘obviously nonsense’.