A lot of people have been very quick this week to criticise Daily Mail columnist A.N. Wilson for evoking Hitler and the Nazi's human experimentation in a piece about the dangers of science. But in Wilson's defence, do not suppose for one minute he made such reference lightly.
After all, before criticising Daily Mail journalists who discuss the Führer, people should try walking a mile in the shoes of anybody who writes for a newspaper whose own founder was alleged to be an admirer of Hitler, supported by personal correspondence first released in 2005. As a result, I'm sure nobody at the Daily Mail uses Hitler's name lightly, given suggestions of Nazi sympathies are never far from any history of the newspaper (though not its present, I hasten to add).
I doubt this picture will have made it onto the walls of the Daily Mail's reception area. But it shows Harold Harmsworth, Lord Rothermere, founder of the Daily Mail, photographed during one of a number of meetings with Adolf Hitler before the outbreak of the Second World War.
I wonder if Rothermere was saying: "In 66 years time secret MI5 files may well show I wrote to you congratulating you on the annexation of Czechoslovakia, and urging you to march into Romania, but seriously, I do think you should be less trusting of scientists or I won't be held responsible for my columnists' lazy and tasteless comparisons."
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