A blast from the past as John Moore defends Ralph Miliband

This article by Nicholas Watt appeared on the Guardian website this afternoon:

A former member of Margaret Thatcher's cabinet has accused the Daily Mail of "telling lies" about Ralph Miliband after the newspaper claimed that the Marxist writings of the late father of the Labour party meant that he hated Britain. 

In the biggest blow to the Mail editor Paul Dacre, who has launched a strong defence of his paper's decision to claim that Ralph Miliband had left an "evil legacy", Lord Moore of Lower Marsh said his former tutor was a good man who never had a bad word to say about Britain.

Lord Moore of Lower Marsh? I had to look him up, but he is indeed John Moore.

Young reader's voice: John Moore? Who's he?

Long before you were born, young reader, John Moore was widely seen as a future leader of the Conservative Party.

As his Wikipedia entry says, John Moore enjoyed a meteoric rise through the ranks of government under Margaret Thatcher. He was an impressive media performer and had the sort of matinée idol looks Maggie always had a weakness for.

So high was his political stock that in 1987 he was appointed Secretary of State for Social Services - this was in the days when that brief also included responsibility for the National Health Service.

This mammoth job proved far beyond his capabilities and he was sacked from the Cabinet in 1989.

And it seems he really had flown too near the sun. As Wikipedia says:

After leaving the Commons in 1992 Moore became a life peer as Baron Moore of Lower Marsh, of Lower Marsh in the London Borough of Lambeth. A BBC feature in August 2011 reported that after 20 years in the House of Lords, Moore had still to make his maiden speech.

Still, good for him for speaking out on Paul Dacre and his odious attack on the Labour leader's father.