A senior Daily Mail executive last night defended the paper's attack on Ed Miliband's father, headlined 'the man who hated Britain', but admitted that illustrating an online story with a picture of Ralph Miliband's grave was "an error of judgement".

Miliband has said that he was "appalled" by the article about his father Ralph, a prominent Marxist intellectual, describing the headline – "The man who hated Britain" – as a "lie".

The Labour leader said that his father, a Jewish refugee who fled to Britain to escape the Nazis and who served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, had always loved the country which gave him sanctuary.