‘Daily Mail’ proprietor apologises to Labour Party leader Ed Miliband

The chairman of the Daily Mail and General Trust has apologised to British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband after a reporter turned up uninvited at a family memorial service, but insisted the incident did not reflect the "culture and practices" of his papers, a Labour spokesman said.

Viscount Rothermere repeated the apology offered yesterday by the Mail on Sunday's editor Geordie Greig after one of his paper's reporters was said to have tried to question relatives of the Labour leader at the service held yesterday for his uncle.

Mr Miliband, who is also involved in a bitter dispute with the Daily Mail over an attack on his late father, had called on the titles' owners to mount an urgent inquiry into the culture at the newspapers.

A Labour spokesman said: "Lord Rothermere has repeated the apology for the behaviour of the Mail on Sunday. This is an important step.

"However, he says he does not believe it reflected the culture and practices of the Mail or Mail on Sunday, and also he does not address the treatment of Ed Miliband's dad over the last few days.

'Values and decency'
"We continue to believe these issues need addressing and until they do so, many people will continue to believe that these newspapers are not upholding the values and decency of the British people."

Mr Greig said that two journalists on his paper had been suspended pending a full investigation into what he said was “a terrible lapse of judgment”.

Labour 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, in Guy's Hospital in central London.

Condolences
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 Sr and was told "no comment". When the reporter asked again, she was given the same answer, at which point she left, it was claimed.

In his letter to Lord Rothermere, 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 the Mail newspapers.

Mr Greig said the decision to send a reporter to the service had been taken without his knowledge and represented a “deplorable intrusion”.

Earlier, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said Mr Miliband's response was "quite understandable". – (PA)