Max Mosley speaks out in defence of father Oswald

Privacy campaigner Max Mosley has broken with his usual policy and spoken about his father and mother, the renowned British fascist Oswald Mosley and Diana Mitford, in an interview with John Humphrys on Radio 4.
 
In the wide-ranging discussion for the On The Ropes programme, Mosley (pictured above in 1960 on his wedding day with new wife Jean and his parents) revealed that as a child he was "proud" of his father, the founder of the British Union of Fascists, and felt that he had been "hard done by".

He said Oswald was mainly motivated by a desire to "avoid a war" after being badly scarred by his experiences on the front line during the First World War.
 
Max, former president of the FIA, motor-racing's governing body, also claimed that his father was not a fan of Hitler, even though the Nazi leader had attended his marriage to Diana Mitford in the Berlin home of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels in 1936.
 
"My father never admired Hitler," said Max, "in fact he quite disliked him. He only met him twice. The one who did admire him was my mother. She really liked him."
 
However, Oswald was impressed by another fascist leader. Max revealed that his father liked Benito Mussolini, the leader of Italy, even though he was "over the top"... "He modelled himself on Mussolini to the extent that he modelled himself on anyone," he said.
 
Mosley Jnr also revealed that he had hoped to pursue a career in politics, but realised it would be impossible while his father was still alive. After Oswald's death in 1980 he spoke to former Tory prime minister Harold Macmillan who told him that he would be welcomed by the Conservative party and claimed "nobody on the street would have any problem with your father".
 
But his plans came to naught and Mosley Jnr decided to concentrate on motor-racing.
 
He was best known as president of the FIA until 2008 when he was exposed as an S&M enthusiast in the News of the World and launched his privacy campaign.
 
He has taken his quest to the European Court of Human Rights and said he regarded the newspaper expose as "a declaration of war" that was illegally published.
 
Mosley told Humphrys that his interest in S&M was no-one else's business - but also revealed that he was no longer involved in the practice.
 
Critics who attacked him in the wake of the scandal were also dismissed. "You get somebody like the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, who said I was guilty of unimaginable depravity. Well, ordinary depravity in his view is leaving the light on or failing to draw the curtains," said Mosley. ·