On Sunday the 6th of October – around 100 people gathered outside the headquarters of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday to protest at the papers concerted hate campaign against huge sections of the UK population.

The demonstration, organised by the People’s Assembly, campaign groups and trade union, was called after revelations that the Mail on Sunday had covertly sent one of its reporters into a private memorial for a member of the Miliband family. The decision to send an undercover reporter into a private family occasion followed a scurrilous attack on Ralph Miliband, a highly respected academic, by the Mail on Sunday’s sister paper the Daily Mail.

Commenting from the protest in central London, Owen Jones, political commentator and journalist, said:  “The Miliband family are the latest in a long line of people that have been subjected to the Mail’s venomous attacks on Muslims, migrants, lesbians and gays and trade unionists have all felt the brutal force of the Daily Mail’s vicious and deceitful attacks over many decades .  The Daily Mail doesn’t reflect the Britain I see around me day to today, a Britain where people of different cultures, different faiths and different colours live side by side. The Daily mail can’t stomach the fact that Britain in 2013 goes against every hate fuelled value Paul Dacre and his paper holds. “  

Prior to addressing the rally Lindsey German, Convenor of the Stop the War coalition, said:   “I have experienced first hand the putrid lies and the character assassination of the Mail. The journalistic values of the Daily Mail can best be summed up as never letting the truth get in the way of a good smear.”  

London Assembly Member Murad Qureshi  speaking to the protest said:   “The Miliband affair highlights yet again why self regulation isn’t working. It is beyond comprehension   that the body tasked with upholding press standards , the PCC, can put Paul Dacre in charge of press ethics. The public are demanding a press that is responsible – right now the Mail is exhibiting all the worst excesses of an unregulated press and that urgently needs to be addressed.”