I’m not a great fan of  Ed Miliband. I’m even less of a fan of Marxism. But I was disgusted by the Daily Mail’s attack on the Labour leader’s late father Ralph Miliband, and its bizarre claim that Ralph hated Britain.

Miliband senior fought for Britain in the Royal Navy in the second world war after fleeing Nazi occupied Europe as a Jewish refugee. He went on to become a famous Marxist acedemic. He died 19 years ago.

The Mail today carried a reply from Ed Miliband. Yet the paper showed its true colours by repeating even more strongly its attack on Ed’s father, and using typically contemptuous language to mock Miliband’s right of reply: “He has stamped his feet and demanded a right of reply”. This is the behaviour of a school bully attacking a victim who dared fight back.

The Mail’s ludicrous attack suggests that the Mail is seriously scared that Miliband’s popular attack on the energy companies at Labour’s conference will kill the possibility of the Tory party winning the 2015 election. That would also hugely increase the possibility of statutory regulation of the press, as recommended by Lord Justice Leveson, and blocked by David Cameron. The Mail will do anything to prevent anyone taking away its ‘power without responsibility’, as Tory prime minister Stanley Baldwin put it.

The Daily Mail has been a huge success since the late David English reinvented it as a tabloid 40 years ago. It’s routinely described as the voice of Middle England. Yet it is strangely out of tune with traditional British values. It ruthlessly attacks anyone who doesn’t share its world view. It lacks a sense of fair play. It has no sense of humour except in its brilliant cartoons. This week’s distasteful stories will prove a seriously misjudgement, boosting Ed Miliband’s reputation and diminishing the Mail’s.