Campbell: Daily Mail ‘lies about everything’

Commenting for the first time on the row with Ed Miliband following the publication of an article about his late father Ralph, Mr Dacre justified the newspaper’s use of the headline The Man Who Hated Britain.

He wrote: “The hysteria that followed is symptomatic of the post-Leveson age in which any newspaper which dares to take on the left in the interests of its readers risks being howled down by the Twitter mob who the BBC absurdly thinks represent the views of real Britain.

“As the week progressed and the hysteria increased, it became clear that this was no longer a story about an article on Mr Miliband’s Marxist father but a full-scale war by the BBC and the left against the paper that is their most vocal critic.

“Orchestrating this bile was an ever more rabid Alastair Campbell. Again, fair-minded readers will wonder why a man who helped drive Dr David Kelly to his death, was behind the dodgy Iraq war dossier and has done more to poison the well of public discourse than anyone in Britain is given so much air-time by the BBC.”

He added: “I am proud that for years, while most of Fleet Street were in thrall to it, the Mail was the only paper to stand up to the malign propaganda machine of Tony Blair and his appalling henchman, Campbell (and, my goodness, it’s been payback time over the past week!).”

Mr Campbell told Channel 4 News he was pleased the reclusive Mail editor had finally broken his silence on the story, but criticised Mr Dacre for declining to engage with him in a live debate.

He said: “I think Paul Dacre is an influential person in British public life. He can walk down any street in Britain without anybody knowing who he is, because he is scared of debate.

“I’m really glad he has written this piece because he has actually done something he hates doing, which is being dragged kicking and screaming a little bit more into the public eye.”

Mr Campbell also said the Mail’s resistance to press regulation was “founded on lies”, saying: “What you’ve got to understand about that article and that newspaper is that they lie about everything.”

He accused Mr Dacre of peddling “absolutely delusional right-wing bilge”.