Mosley’s can of worms

It is unfair always to visit the sins of the father upon the son. But Max Mosley, offspring of the pre-war British fascist leader Oswald, cannot be fully exonerated. In his youth he was the election agent for the Union Movement, a party established by his father. During a by-election campaign in 1961 it is alleged he was the publisher of a pamphlet containing racist language.

This was almost 60 years ago. Mr Mosley says that he does not recognise the leaflet and that it is not something he would ever have wished to be associated with. He wants us to treat it as history. Indeed, if he got his way the whole embarrassing story would be erased. Mr Mosley is seeking to use data protection laws to require media outlets to block or remove archived information deemed by the applicant to be inaccurate. He has a personal interest here. He won a landmark privacy case against the now defunct News of the World, which had exposed his admitted participation in an orgy with prostitutes. Were he to succeed in a legal challenge, he would be able to remove reference to this episode from newspaper and other media libraries.

The reason the 1961 pamphlet matters is because Mr Mosley was asked about it during the privacy case in 2008 but denied its existence under oath. A question arises as to whether he misled the court. Equally apposite is Mr Mosley’s financial support for the office of Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson, a campaigner for restrictions on press freedom. Mr Watson has received more than £500,000 and feels no compulsion to pay it back, though he will not take any more. Would Labour be so insouciant if this was the deputy leader of the Conservative Party being backed by, say, a supporter of apartheid? The hypocrisy reeks to the heavens.