This excellent dramatisation did not go down at all well when it was first screened because of its apparently sympathetic portrayal of one of the most notorious characters in British politics. The fact that it was written by two Jews irked the usual suspects even more. Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran are better known as comedy writers, though for his sins Marks was also Pipe Smoker Of The Year, 1990.
Although "Mosley" is indeed sympathetic to Sir Oswald, this is due entirely to Marks and Gran putting aside whatever prejudices or preconceptions they may have had and following the historical record, which is often at variance from public perception and media portrayal, as Donald Trump supporters have discovered since 2016.
The research that went into "Mosley" is impressive; it shows how rather than being any kind of anti-Semite he turned to exploiting anti-Semitism after his supporters were persistently attacked by Communist Jews and fellow travellers when he finally lost patience with mainstream politics forming first the New Party and then the BUF. His primary concern as a regular politician was economics, and it is clear from his writings that he understood at least to a degree the defects of the current financial system, one that has not changed significantly to this day in spite of Bretton Woods and the IMF.
"Mosley" shows too the first cause he championed, namely that of the Irish who were brutalised by the Black And Tans, in fact, in 1958, a period not covered by this mini-series, Mosley published a pamphlet called "Ireland's Right To Unite".
Like Donald Trump, Mosley was born into privilege but identified more with the working man than with the elites, even though unlike Trump he was not an outsider. That is where the similarities end though because Mosley entered politics as a young man, one in a hurry. Had he not been so impetuous, history may have been kinder to him, but few authors will be kinder than Marks and Gran.
