Talk:Oswald Mosley

message: Why is there no detailed mention of the decline of the BUF in Britain? Prior to 1934 the BUF was probably in its strongest position with its peak membership of around 50,000 people which abruptly declined after the Olympia fiasco of 1934. It lost not just mass support but also financial support as well as dettering other potential supporters. Yes there was a brief revival in the run up to the war, mostly spurred on by Mosley's campaigns for peace with Germany but 1934 was almost definitively the end of the BUF as a political force, not that it ever had any serious political potential in the first place. I think this needs to be added.
Also, the user who quoted Oswald as a "great man". I'm not going to question your personal opinion but perhaps you should do more reading into the subject. Unless of course you are an anti-semite, in which case I understand your appraisal of Mosley.
--Historian1986 18:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  BUF decline 

message: The victim of Jewish violence? Really? I know it's just a stereotype, but still. --Charles A. L. 07:39, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what you're saying here.  Are you objecting to the word Jewish, are you saying that Jewish groups weren't involved in violence against the BUF or are you saying the sentence should be re-worded so that the BUF don't sound like the innocent party (which they probably weren't)? --Cjrother 00:01, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica Online School Edition, the British Union of Fascists and the Union Movement (the two groups Mosley led) "were known for distributing anti-Semitic propaganda, conducting hostile demonstrations in the Jewish sections of east London, and wearing Nazi-style uniforms and insignia." This clearly suggests to me that Mosley deliberately provoked Jewish hostility, and if Encyclopaedia Britannica can clearly suggest it, then I think Wikipedia can as well. In bending over backward to appear neutral, the article as it currently stands is effectively biasing itself in favor of Mosley apologists. TheScotch (talk) 08:27, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jews 

message: The article states that Mosley fell out with the Conservative Party over the Blacks and Tans. Was he oppposed to them or did he support them? The Conservative Party first supported them and them opposed them I believe so I can't figure it out woth help of the context.
:Mosley opposed the use of brutal measures to repress the Irish. David | Talk 14:54, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks.  I had the same question (and I'm writing in 2007)! The article remains ambiguous the way it is written. 210.50.56.79 07:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

text: Mosley was responding to a wave of press publicity at the time. At the end of his life he was invited to speak to Ireland's barristers on this, at the King's Inns  in 1978. He also had houses in Galway - until a fire - and later near Fermoy in Cork. He was seen as a rare and early spokesman criticizing the activities of the Black and Tans and remained popular regarding this matter in Ireland, as distinct from his later fascist politics.86.42.201.176 (talk) 10:25, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conservative Party 

message: When was he knighted and what for? 83.217.166.9 20:54, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: He wasn't knighted; he was a hereditary baronet. Mackensen (talk) 21:18, 16 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This fact should probably be written into the preface. It's probably a relatively little known, but nonetheless relevant - 81.110.41.5 03:09, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is; he's clearly referred to as the 6th Baronet. Readers who aren't sure what a baronet is only have to click the link to the article 'baronet'. Martan 18:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sir 

message: I changed the mention of the Daily Mail. In the 1930s it was not a tabloid size newspaper, but a broadsheet. It became a tabloid format paper in the 1970s, I believe.Martinscholes 22:04, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It was always a "popular paper", pretty much the first such in fact. Lord Northcliffe's immense political power in WW1 came because he owned both "The Times" and the "Daily Mail", the leading papers in each market segment. The name "tabloid" came later.Paulturtle (talk) 15:43, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mail 

message: Why is there no mention of his death? How did he die?
:I've added that it was natural causes, but I don't know which disease. Best name (talk) 02:03, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cause of death? 

message: I have changed the description of the BUF as 'becoming increasingly right-wing... ' to becoming increasingly authoritarian...'. The right-wing label really does not fit as Mosley was a former Labour minister who was on a clear path towards more radical Socialism with every year he lived. The majority of his supporters were also drawn from the Labour party. The parallels here with the National Socialists of Germany (Nazi party) and Hitler’s social policy are strong. The BUF does not fit into our traditional view of left and right in Britain and so should best be avoided in this article.
Anyone wondering where the thinking behind this comes from should bear in mind that there is a strong argument that Fascism is a type of Communism and both belong on the autocratic state controlled left, whilst it is anarchy (or at least the absence of laws, depending on whether one believes in natural order) that is the logical extension of the individual freedoms cherished by right wingers.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.86.132.225 (talk) 17:32, 8 February, 2007
(UTC)
"There is a strong argument that Fascism is a type of Communism"--is that why Fascists and Communists were fighting on the streets across Europe in the 1930's?  There is no argument at all for such a position, except by those who use ideology as a substitute for knowing history.
Troglo (talk) 02:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the terms right and left in respect to politics are vague and fairly meaningless, but this is pretty much beside the point as far as this article currently stands because the terms Labour Party and Fascism are not vague and meaningless. The problem with the article, in my reading, is that it doesn't give us a clear idea how Mosely evolved (if this is the appropriate word) in his thinking from Labour to Fascism. The "tour of Italy" bit doesn't really cut it. (Fascism may be like communism in that it is statist, but it is unlike communism in that it is anti-democratic in theory--not just in practice--and in that it officially believes in a merging of corporate and state power. Anti-semitism and racism are strong and important components of NAZI-ism. There was, of course, plenty of practical anti-semitism in communist Russia, but this has nothing to do with the doctrine of communism. The "logical extension" of individual rights is in the eye of the beholder, but it's unnecessarily confusing to refer to libertarianists under the general rubric "right wingers".) TheScotch (talk) 08:12, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

text: Mosley was indeed ex-Labour but he was also ex-Tory.  And you may be missing the significance of the prefix "ex-".  And it is ahistorical to equate anarchism with the right or to think that authoritarianism is solely or even primarily the province of the left. 31.53.204.76 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 12:13, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Right-wing? 

message: :Image:Mosleyarrest.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Mosleyarrest.jpg

message: I needed 20 minutes a pen and paper just to get this figured out. Is there any way that this could be written out more clearly?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Olsdude (talk • contribs) 01:56, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Family 

message: I notice that the Hitler image has been removed twice now without recourse to this page to justify. Since Mosley referred frequently to the fellow, I think it is important to have Hitler's image on the page. I am thus reverting what appears to be vandalism. Peterlewis (talk) 08:29, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Most Wikipedia biographies do not have pictures of people other than the subject on them. The only way a pic of Hitler should be on this article is if it is of the two men standing together or shaking hands. Best name (talk) 02:03, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Adolf Hitler

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replies: text: I've removed it. Really no justification to have it in this article. Apterygial 07:21, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Image copyright problem with File:Diana Mitford.jpg

message: What evidence is there for the statement that the Duke of Windsor "approved of the BUF campaign for Edward to keep his throne"?  I am not aware that Edward supported any campaign for him to keep the throne.124.197.15.138 (talk) 00:42, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: According to Encyclopaedia Britannica Online School Edition, "Winston Churchill, then out of power, was [Edward VII's] only notable ally [in Edward's "attempts to gain the royal family's acceptance of Mrs. Simpson", the failure of which led directly to his abdication]." This suggests that either Mosley was not Edward's ally or that Mosley was not notable. I see there is already a "citation needed" notice next to the passage you question, and it appears to have been in place for some time. I vote to delete the passage, and if someone wants to restore it, let's require an accompanying citation. TheScotch (talk) 08:51, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edward VIII 

message: The main text says he was born near Burton-on-Trent, but the box has London. Which is right? PrivateSponge (talk) 13:26, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Birthplace?

message: As currently used in this article "Cultural Impact" is a code phrase for trivia. I'll give interested persons sufficient time to move into the main article anything from this section they consider worth salvaging, then return eventually and delete the section and whatever in it happens to remain. TheScotch (talk) 08:57, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that the pre-war items are of significance but the post-war ones slowly descend into trivia. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:37, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

text: This is mostly fair comment. The connecting thread is that the three writers were eminent persons for their time, and for ours. As for the Wells book, whenever it was published, it was certainly written befire the war because of the time lag between submitting a book to a publisher and its eventual publication. The exact timing would not seem to matter much apart from Huxley. It was a lot easier to attack Mosley after the war, after he had been interned as an enemy sympathiser, than before it when he had gangs of bully-boys at his disposal (a feature of the Wells book). Xxanthippe (talk) 07:49, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

text: The social and cultural reactions to Mosley's activities are a crucial component of the story. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:57, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Also it is interesting how the folk memory of the Battle of Cable Street has changed from what it was - a battle between the left and the police (who were guarding / separating the Blackshirts) - into a battle between the left and the Blackshirts themselves. The social and cultural aspects are important as they often direct how we understand past events. "Two myths have grown up around the event, which of course was a milestone in the long history of working class struggle. One is that the opposition to the Mosley fascists was almost entirely Jewish. The other is that the "battle" was between the protesters and the Blackshirts. It was not - it was a battle with the police." (see this link).86.42.201.176 (talk) 10:49, 25 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cultural Impact 

message: How is this vandalism:
* Mosley becomes ruler of England after the alien invasion is defeated in Superman: War of the Worlds.
203.35.82.133 (talk) 05:07, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism How? 

message: What happened on '10 October 1915' ? The date doesn't seem to refer to anything.
  米 (talk) 21:47, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Family and early life 

message: Anachronistic error - Sir Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe had died, with his peerage, in 1922 and would not have been alive to have headed the Daily Mail and to endorse Mosley's New Party (formed 1931).  Who was proprietor of the Mail at that point in Mosley's career?Cloptonson (talk) 19:37, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: The 1st Viscount Rothermere was Northcliffe's brother, not his son. Valetude (talk) 21:42, 23 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: New Party

message: :"During this marriage he had an extended affair with his wife's younger sister Lady Alexandra Metcalfe, and with their stepmother, Grace Curzon, Marchioness Curzon of Kedleston, the U.S.-born second wife and widow of Lord Curzon of Kedleston."
This is quite a claim and so I expected there to be some source, some reference to information, historical nonfiction, memoirs, whatever, that could back up such an inflammatory statement. But there are none. And the page is locked so I can't even request that someone come up with citations for such personal details. There is nothing about this affair on the page of Grace Curzon and the sources for it on Alexandra Metcalfe's bio are laughably inaccurate and can not be verified.
It seems like there is so much dislike for this person that people will believe and include any information that would make him look immoral which is, frankly, beneath Wikipedia's standards. This is not a historical version of TMZ. 69.125.134.86 (talk) 00:55, 9 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clearly gossip 

message: Footnote 1 is incorrect. A baronet is not a member of the peerage. The peerage is confined "peers of the realm" of whom the lowest rank is "baron". Formerly, all peers were entitled to sit in the House of Lords. This has never applied to baronets. Their title is hereditary but it is only in that respect that it resembles a (non-life) peerage.
5.81.250.43 (talk) 10:15, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Jackmcbarn (talk) 00:24, 25 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Jackmcbarn should take a look at Baronet where he will find that the comment by 5.81.250.43 is correct. Not to bother, the correction was made to the article long ago. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:11, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit request on 24 August 2013 

message: The Market Drayton article currently says this:
:"The 1930s British fascist leader Oswald Mosley was born nearby in 1896, at Betton Hall, the home of his mother's parents. When his parents separated, Oswald and his brother went with their mother to live in Smithfield Road. Mosley attended a dame school in Shropshire Street until he went to public school at the age of eight. Apart from holidays he never lived in Drayton again.
:"Mosley was deeply ashamed of their reduced circumstances and he did everything to hide the years in Drayton. Their middle-class status contrasted with the huge estate of his paternal grandparents in Staffordshire. Years later, following the death of their mother, he obtained her diaries from his brother and burned them.
:"In the 1930s, at the height of his notoriety, he returned to the town, where he held a meeting in the square."
But none of this is supported by any sources, however, and it is not corroborated by anything in this article. Is it all correct, particularly the details about schooling? As another editor has pointed out, it would be usual to go to preparatory school at age 8 and to public school at age 13. If sources could be found, perhaps the material should be added here also. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:34, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Market Drayton]] 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Oswald Mosley. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20121115231014/http://www.sotcaa.net/archivereview/mosely.html to http://www.sotcaa.net/archivereview/mosely.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The Article states that Mosley received support from Aneurin Bevan regarding the New Party; 
"Dissatisfied with the Labour Party, Mosley quickly founded the New Party. Its early parliamentary contests, in the 1931 Ashton-under-Lyne by-election and subsequent by-elections, arguably had a spoiler effect in splitting the left-wing vote and allowing Conservative candidates to win. Despite this, the organisation gained support among many Labour and Conservative politicians who agreed with his corporatist economic policy, and among these were Aneurin Bevan and Harold Macmillan. It also gained the endorsement of the Daily Mail newspaper, headed at the time by Harold Harmsworth (later created 1st Viscount Rothermere)."
This is not given with a citation.
Whereas in the Aneurin Bevan page, a section reads
"Soon after he entered parliament Bevan was briefly attracted to Oswald Mosley's arguments, becoming one of the 17 signatories of the Mosley Memorandum in the context of the MacDonald government's repeated economic crises, including the doubling of unemployment levels.[9] However, in the words of his biographer John Campbell, "he breached with Mosley as soon as Mosley breached with the Labour Party"."
The second section has a source but there is no citation to Campbell.
Presumably if Aneurin Bevan had rejected Mosley's split then he would not have supported the New Party. Perhaps the first section is still accurate but requires revision.
DarkyDu (talk) 17:58, 10 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Support from Aneurin Bevan 

message: The article has
His second son inherited the baronetcy,
but this is not consistent with the list of children, according to which Nicholas was Oswald's second child, but his first son.
86.148.153.153 (talk) 12:52, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that looks like a simple error. I have corrected it. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:08, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Error? 

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120113154415/http://www.oldsuffragette.co.uk/ to http://www.oldsuffragette.co.uk/
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:
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Participate in the deletion discussion at the . —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:52, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion 

message: The proper place for fictional representations, such as his affair with the non-existent wife of the equally non-existent Tommy Shelby MP, is in the section of the page entitled 'In popular culture', not the introduction. There is even a mention of his appearance in Peaky Blinders there.
Markaeologist (talk) 11:49, 17 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fiction 

message: Currently article states:
The Mirror piece was a guest article by Daily Mail owner Viscount Rothermere and an apparent one-off; despite these briefly warm words for the BUF, the paper was so vitriolic in its condemnation of European fascism that Nazi Germany added the paper's directors to a hit-list in the event of a successful Operation Sea Lion
(With a dead link to the an article called "The Darnkess in the Mirror" at the Tribune.)
Recently reading more about this there seems a growing consensus in another direction. Here at the independent ( https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/revealed-the-fascist-past-of-the-daily-mirror-77871.html ) we read:
"But the idea of the 1930s Mirror as a great champion of the anti-Nazi cause is largely mythical. And there is no indication that Cecil King ever changed his politics. King remained an admirer of Oswald Mosley, announcing in his memoirs that Mosley had been "the outstanding politician of his generation" and that his only mistake was to have "chosen the wrong side during the war"."
The same article states:
"What is less well known is that the Mail's former stablemate the Daily Mirror was just as pro-fascist. On Monday, 22 January, 1934 the Mirror ran the headline "Give the Blackshirts a helping hand". The paper went one further than the Mail, urging readers to join Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and giving the address to which to send membership applications."
A similar theme is taken up by Roy Greenslade at the Guardian here - https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2011/dec/06/dailymail-oswald-mosley - in particular pointing out that the questions of the newspaper ownership are not as clear as is sometimes assumed. The way things are wriiten makes it sound like Rothermere had nothing to do with the Mirror and just randomly wrote an article supporting the Blackshirts once in the Mirror and they published it while otherwise being critical of fascism - that appears to not be the case.
The Independent article notes that the paper became extremely patriotic during the war - was that the reason why the Germans planned to target it? I tried googling the link to Operation Sea lion but couldn't find anything.
What is the correct way to handle this situation with a dead link? I realise this is a contentious issue with the association used to this day to attack both newsspapers so think it is probably best done by consensus but as it is currently written it doesm't seem to match the sources.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C7:987:BB00:E87A:CB70:7495:CAC (talk) 14:51, 8 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Daily Mirror support 

message: Hi  - I'm putting a note here to explain my recent reverts. Please also read through the links in the welcome template I left on your talk page. In short, you can't attribute an assertion that he had a great impact on society to 'oswaldmosley.com' - you'd need a reliably published, independent source saying that, ideally an academic history book. You certainly can't make a connection between his ideas and Corbyn's using a Guardian article that doesn't mention Mosley. The sources must explicitly support the statements you are making - any 'joining the dots', or combining multiple sources to come to a conclusion they don't mention, is covered by WP:OR. If you have any questions about any of this, please let me know. Cheers GirthSummit (blether) 18:33, 17 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent edits and reverts 

message: The lead says "The New Party became the British Union of Fascists (BUF) in 1932." Unfortunately there is no prior explanation of what the New Party is. I'm guessing this is the result of some recent edit-warring. Muzilon (talk) 12:04, 14 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abrupt mention of New Party in lead 

message: Is the semi-keynesian Mosley Memorandum on public use? If so, where can i find it? 212.146.45.74 (talk) 13:21, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mosley Memorandum 

message: Why aren't his essays and books listed in this article? Many other people have their works listed at the bottom, of their article. XenogenesisX2 (talk) 13:51, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Works of Mosley 

message: The introductory section has a lot of detail. Perhaps most of it should be transferred to later sections. Mcljlm (talk) 02:59, 30 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction/Lede 

message: If you feel it's necessary to clutter up this rather serious article with an infantile list of pop culture references, you really need to include one very important and useful item which is mysteriously absent. I refer of course to "Oswald Mosley The Blackshirt Funnyman", a one-off strip which appeared in Viz Comics issue 95. 86.132.249.222 (talk) 08:56, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zany Fun With Sir Oswald 

message: The Battle of Cable Street increased anti-Semitism in the UK, caused the BUF to have a surge in its membership, and led to the BUF performing much better in elections. (2A00:23C5:C416:A601:9871:3D07:3A3B:93FF (talk) 16:36, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: There does seem to be some evidence of this, according to facinghistory.org: "By late October 1936, membership in the BUF had increased by 2,000, with many joining East End branches of the organisation. In March 1937, Tilles notes that the BUF received 18% of the East End vote, and around 30% of the non-Jewish vote, in the three main areas of the Cable Street confrontation between demonstrators, police, and Fascists." (2A00:23C5:C416:A601:5D5:2982:8A27:BCE4 (talk) 18:57, 31 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lede is misleading