My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyeven to preserve some right of reply. This is one of the few beneficent revolutionsBritain has experienced in the modern age.The same thing cannot be said, in my experience, of television. It is surely grotesquethat an institution established by national charter should be able continually to attackan individual over a long period of time without according any right of reply. It canbecome a national danger that in a period of gathering crisis the public mind shouldbe continually debauched with systematic silliness; for what was a whim to the oldPress lords has become a system to the official masters of television. Keep it silly andstop them thinking is the general rule. When ideas are discussed they are confined tothe prevailing and visibly failing orthodoxy. I may possibly, in the light of modernand authoritative comment, be forgiven for citing my own case as a man who in theeconomic sphere is now generally admitted to have been right in the last crisis, buthas never at the time of writing been permitted by the BBC to put his view on thepresent crisis to a television audience.The method of King Bunk in the twenties was to publish everything about us exceptour serious life and our constructive ideas. Our brief trips abroad during that periodincurred the most trouble with the Press. Short visits to Paris were unnoticed; timewas spent mostly in private houses, where we made friendships which have been ahappiness to me throughout life. But each summer we used to go to the South ofFrance or Italy for a holiday of a month, which we felt was well earned after a year ofhard work in Parliament, supplemented by continual weekend meetings for the partyand long autumn speaking tours, and this was regarded as a grave offence.The Press at that time took the view that no one who was a Socialist was entitled everto have a good time. We were pursued throughout our holiday to ensure that weshould not. To take one ridiculous incident typical of the treatment, a sea-sport weused to enjoy was the predecessor of the modern water-skiing, not the old aquaplanebut a free board, rather like the modern surf-board, with a rope from the motor-boatdirect to the hand which enabled the playing of various tricks. This excited the Press,and reporters pursued us in motor-boats of their own to get snapshots of the 'richSocialists' at play, published with captions suggesting that we spent our lives doingnothing else.The largest meetings in the country, speeches that packed the House of Commons,policies which in the next generation were quoted by historians and economists ashaving offered a solution of the contemporary problems —all could pass without amention—but every time that my backside hit the azure blue of the Mediterranean, aheadline or photograph would ensue. King Bunk reigned, and he fed the people thedope of drivel which turns their stomach today in recurring economic crises. It is truethat cinema stars now suffer the same treatment, but the difference is that we hadsomething serious to say and they have not; our concern was the country, and theirs isthe box-office.The 'rich Socialists' line of attack soon became the chief stock-in-trade of Press andParty, and entered into every sphere of our life. Bernard Shaw came back with astrong counter-attack on our behalf; his article entitled 'The Yahoos' was a dialecticalmasterpiece. We took up the fight and got the best of the 'rich Socialists' argument,though the Tories as usual did not notice that until it came to the vote. Our theme was159 of 424